(Washington) US President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that it is essential to protect civilians as violent urban fighting rages in and around Gaza’s largest cities, the White House announced .
“The president stressed the absolute need to protect civilians and separate the civilian population from Hamas, including through corridors allowing people to move safely out of demarcated combat zones,” the House said. Blanche in a press release.
In his first telephone exchange with Mr. Netanyahu since November 26, the president insisted that “much more aid must be authorized,” the White House added.
The United States has fully supported Israel since the October 7 attack by Hamas, in which 1,200 people were killed, according to Israeli authorities.
But the Biden administration is increasingly publicly concerned about the consequences on civilians of the Israeli response in the Gaza Strip, bombed and besieged for several weeks, and where UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres fears “a collapse total public order.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry says the Israeli offensive has left more than 17,000 dead, the vast majority of them women, children and teenagers.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also urged Israel to do more to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip and protect civilians, in an appeal to Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer , according to a diplomatic source.
“It remains imperative that Israel make the protection of civilians a priority,” Mr. Blinken insisted during a joint press conference with David Cameron, the head of British diplomacy visiting Washington.
“There remains a gap between […] the intent to protect civilians and the concrete results we are seeing on the ground,” he added, in one of the most explicit criticisms delivered by the Biden administration.
According to the White House, the American president also stressed to Israel, which now also operates in the south of the Gaza Strip, that the number of victims and displacements should not be as high as during the assault initial on the north of the Palestinian territory.
He also called on Hamas to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to have access to the hostages still held by the Palestinian Islamist movement since the October 7 attack.
Mr. Biden spoke separately with King Abdullah II of Jordan, as efforts continue to restore a pause in the conflict after the short truce that collapsed last week, according to the White House.
The two leaders agreed to work toward “lasting peace in the Middle East, which would include the creation of a Palestinian state,” the White House said.