Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday agreed to send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to discuss with Biden administration officials a prospective Rafah operation as each side is looking to make \u201cclear to the other its perspective,\u201d White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The agreement to hold talks about Rafah came as Biden<\/strong>and Netanyahu<\/strong> spoke Monday, their first interaction in more than a month, as the divide has grown between allies over the food crisis in Gaza and Israel\u2019s conduct during the war, according to the White House. Sullivan said the talks will happen in the coming days and are expected to involve military, intelligence and humanitarian experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The White House has been skeptical of Netanyahu\u2019s plan to carry out an operation in the southern city of Rafah, where about 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering, as Israel looks to eliminate Hamas following the militant group\u2019s\u00a0deadly Oct. 7 attack<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sullivan said Biden in the call once again urged Netanyahu not to carry out a Rafah operation. At the coming talks, he said U.S. officials will lay out \u201can alternative approach that would target key Hamas elements in Rafah and secure the Egypt-Gaza border without a major ground invasion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe president has rejected, and did again today, the straw man that raising questions about Rafah is the same as raising questions about defeating Hamas,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cThat\u2019s just nonsense. Our position is that Hamas should not be allowed a safe haven in Rafah or anywhere else, but a major ground operation there would be a mistake. It would lead to more innocent civilian deaths, worsen the already dire humanitarian crisis, deepen the anarchy in Gaza and further isolate Israel internationally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The call comes after Republicans in Washington and Israeli officials were quick to express outrage after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sharply criticized<\/strong>Netanyahu\u2019s handling of the war in Gaza<\/strong> and called for Israel to hold new elections. They accused the Democratic leader of breaking the unwritten rule against interfering in a close ally\u2019s electoral politics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden hasn\u2019t endorsed Schumer\u2019s call for election but said he thought he gave a \u201cgood speech\u201d that reflected the concerns of many Americans. Netanyahu raised concerns about the calls by Schumer for new elections, Sullivan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden administration officials have warned that they would not support an operation in Rafah without the Israelis presenting a credible plan to ensure the safety of innocent Palestinian civilians. Israel has yet to present such a plan, according to White House officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Netanyahu in a statement after the call made no direct mention of the tension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe discussed the latest developments in the war, including Israel\u2019s commitment to achieving all of the war\u2019s goals: Eliminating Hamas, freeing all of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza never (again) constitutes a threat to Israel \u2014 while providing the necessary humanitarian aid that will assist in achieving these goals,\u201d Netanyahu said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Biden-Netanyahu call also came as a new report warned that \u201cfamine is imminent\u201d<\/strong> in northern Gaza, where 70% of the remaining population is experiencing catastrophic hunger, and that a further escalation of the war could push around half of Gaza\u2019s population to the brink of starvation. The report came from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a partnership of more than a dozen governments, U.N. aid and other agencies that determines the severity of food crises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Netanyahu lashed out against the American criticism<\/strong>on Sunday, describing calls for a new election as \u201cwholly inappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Netanyahu told Fox News Channel that Israel never would have called for a new U.S. election after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and he denounced Schumer\u2019s comments as inappropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re not a banana republic,\u201d he said. \u201cThe people of Israel will choose when they will have elections, and who they\u2019ll elect, and it\u2019s not something that will be foisted on us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even as they express frustration about aspects of the Israeli operations, the White House acknowledges that Israel has made significant progress in degrading Hamas. And Sullivan revealed on Monday that an Israeli operation last week killed Hamas\u2019 third in command, Marwan Issa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe president told the prime minister again today that we share the goal of defeating Hamas, but we just believe you need a coherent and sustainable strategy to make that happen,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden after his State of the Union address earlier this month was caught on a hot mic<\/strong> telling a Democratic ally that he has told Netanyahu they would have a \u201ccome to Jesus\u201d meeting over the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza<\/strong>. His frustration with Netanyahu\u2019s prosecution of the war was also on display in a recent MSNBC interview, in which he asserted Netanyahu was \u201churting Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe has a right to defend Israel, a right to continue to pursue Hamas,\u201d Biden said of Netanyahu in the MSNBC interview. \u201cBut he must, he must, he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken. He\u2019s hurting … in my view, he\u2019s hurting Israel more than helping Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The president announced during his State of the Union address that the U.S. military would help establish a temporary pier aimed at boosting the amount of aid getting into the territory. The U.S. military has also been air-dropping aid into Gaza<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Biden administration resorted to the unusual workarounds after months of appealing to Israel, a top recipient of military aid, to step up access and protection for trucks bearing humanitarian goods for Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The five-month war was triggered after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel in a surprise attack, rampaging through communities, killing some 1,200 people \u2014 mostly civilians \u2014 and taking around 250 hostages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel responded with one of the deadliest and most destructive<\/strong> military campaigns in recent history. The war has killed over 31,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza\u2019s Health Ministry<\/strong>. Around 80% of Gaza\u2019s population of 2.3 million have fled their homes, and a quarter of the population faces starvation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday agreed to send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to discuss with Biden administration officials a prospective Rafah operation as each side is looking to make \u201cclear to the other its perspective,\u201d White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said. The agreement to hold talks about Rafah […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":40990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4836,11261,6850,5304,11394,949,5178,9204,9331,6848,7747,8440,913,5846,10739,5049,911,6458,6496,8254,2629,6032,5930,12634,10598,12173,8251,12298,11166,11493,5252,3095,7970,9515,10454,3874,10634,11743,11031,9833,10748,5572,6779,12187,7693,11973,8353,5568,6821,5424,9374,3805,3174,11167,10814,6575,5655,8501,10041,8122,7231,9262,6348,5251,2354,6571,2982,594],"class_list":["post-41888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-access","tag-accused","tag-aid","tag-attack","tag-attacks","tag-banana","tag-biden","tag-border","tag-city","tag-civilians","tag-crises","tag-crisis","tag-democratic","tag-displaced","tag-display","tag-egypt","tag-election","tag-famine","tag-food","tag-fox-news","tag-gaza","tag-goods","tag-hamas","tag-health","tag-homes","tag-hostages","tag-humanitarian-aid","tag-hunger","tag-innocent","tag-interview","tag-invasion","tag-israel","tag-jesus","tag-killed","tag-killing","tag-lead","tag-lost","tag-majority","tag-majority-leader","tag-meeting","tag-militant","tag-military","tag-military-aid","tag-n","tag-national-security","tag-one","tag-outrage","tag-palestinian","tag-palestinians","tag-politics","tag-population","tag-president","tag-prime-minister","tag-prosecution","tag-rafah","tag-republicans","tag-security","tag-senate","tag-speech","tag-tension","tag-union","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-war","tag-washington","tag-white","tag-white-house","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41889,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41888\/revisions\/41889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}