US President Joe Biden has suggested that Israel’s military response in the Gaza Strip is “overreach” and said he is calling for a “sustained pause in fighting” to help ailing Palestinian civilians. .
“You know, I think the response in Gaza has gone too far,” Biden told reporters at the White House.
He added that he had called for normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, increased humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians, and a moratorium on fighting to allow Hamas to release hostages.
“I’m working very hard right now to address this hostage ceasefire,” Biden said. “There are so many innocent people who are starving. There are so many innocent people who are in need and are dying. This has to stop.”
The remarks were some of Biden’s sharpest public criticism yet of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and came as the Democratic president faces growing domestic pressure to pressure Israel to cease fighting. Ta.
The White House did not respond to requests for details about Biden’s remarks.
Immediately after Israel’s first attack, Biden was criticized for his comments describing the deaths of innocent Palestinians as “the price of war.”
Israel launched a military offensive on October 7 after Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages in southern Israel. The Gaza Health Ministry said more than 27,000 Palestinians were confirmed killed, and thousands more were feared buried under rubble.
There has been one ceasefire so far, which lasted for a week starting in late November.
Saudi Arabia has informed the United States that it will not have diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized on the border with East Jerusalem in 1967 and Israel’s “invasion” of the Gaza Strip ceases, Saudi Arabia said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced this in a statement on Wednesday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state.
On Thursday, Israeli forces were forced to take over half of Gaza’s population as diplomats tried to salvage ceasefire talks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a Hamas offer and confirmed that Israeli forces would advance into Rafah. They bombed areas of the evacuated southern border city of Rafah.
The airstrike killed at least 13 people, including two women and five children, according to a Kuwaiti hospital that accepted the bodies. At the strike site, residents were using cellphone flashlights and digging through the rubble with pickaxes and bare hands.
“I wish we could have collected their whole bodies instead of just parts,” said Mohamed Abu Habib, a neighbor who witnessed the strike.
International aid groups have warned that a major operation in Rafah, which Israel has previously designated as a “safe” area, would worsen what is already a humanitarian catastrophe. .
“If they are not killed in combat, Palestinian children, women and men are at risk of dying from starvation and disease,” said Bob Kitchin of the International Rescue Committee. “There will no longer be a single ‘safe’ area for Palestinians.”
Outside the hospital where the bodies of the night strikers were taken, relatives wept as they said goodbye to their loved ones. Warda Abu Warda said she felt helpless.
“Where are we going after Rafa? Shall we go to the beach?” she asked.
Biden said he hoped an agreement to release the hostages would lead to a pause in fighting that could last for a long time.
He also suggested that Hamas launched the October attack to stop a broader agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, but added there was “no evidence”.
In explaining his response to the crisis, Biden appeared to confuse details of diplomatic efforts, referring to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as Mexico’s leader.
“Initially, Mexican President Sisi did not want to open the gates to allow humanitarian supplies to flow in, Biden said.
“I talked to him. I persuaded him to open the gate. I talked with Bibi to open the gate on the Israeli side.”
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report
