US President Biden spoke on the phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Haaretz reported it.
It is the first phone call between the two since January 19th.
Joe Biden urges Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "ensure the safety" of the population in Rafah before a military operation.
This was stated by the White House, reporting on the conversation between the two leaders.
Biden "reaffirmed that the military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible plan to ensure the safety and support of the million refugee people", the White House says, underlining that the two leaders have "reaffirmed the common goal of seeing Defeat Hamas and ensure the long-term security of Israel and its people."
Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about the ongoing efforts to release the hostages held by Hamas.
The White House states this when reporting on the phone call between the two leaders.
"The US president has highlighted the need to capitalize on the progress made in the negotiations to ensure the release of all hostages as soon as possible", adds the White House.
Biden also called for “specific and urgent steps to increase humanitarian assistance to innocent Palestinian civilians.”
The Washington Post, citing some sources, reported that
Joe Biden and his advisors "are closer" than ever since the war in Gaza began "to a break with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, no longer considered a productive partner who can be also influenced in private"
.
According to the same sources, "frustration with Netanyahu has pushed some of Biden's advisors to pressure the president to be more critical in public regarding the Israeli prime minister for his military operation in Gaza".
Biden has so far resisted taking his frustration with Netanyahu to the public.
For his part, the Israeli prime minister defends the American president. "I found him very clear and very focused.
We managed to agree on the objectives of the war and on many things."
Thus Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an interview with ABC News, expressed himself on US President Joe Biden who was recently accused - given his age - of having lost clarity of mind.
"Sometimes we had disagreements, but - he added - they were not born from misunderstandings on his or my part".
"I appreciate President Biden's support since the beginning of the war. I don't know exactly" what he meant when he spoke of an exaggerated operation. "
But put yourself in Israel's shoes, we were attacked. We responded in a way that attacked terrorists, I think we are doing the right thing.
We will win, victory is within reach
. "
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated this in an interview with ABC.
In an excerpt from an ABC interview to be broadcast today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects calls for Israel to avoid a military offensive in Rafah:
"Those who say that under no circumstances should we enter Rafah are essentially telling us to lose the war. Keep Hamas there," he said.
The Israeli media reported it.
“We will take the remaining Hamas terrorist battalions in Rafah, which is the last bastion,” Netanyahu added.
Gaza's southernmost city has become a refuge for nearly a million displaced Palestinians driven south by the war.
The Israeli army will provide "safe passage for the civilian population" before the start of the military operation in Rafah, Netanyahu added in an interview with ABC News in which he rejected the international community's fears "of a catastrophe", given the presence of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians in the area.
"We will guarantee safe passage for the civilian population so that they can leave," he explained. "We are developing a detailed plan to do so. We are not cavalier about this."
For the Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, "the deepening of operations in Gaza brings us closer to a realistic agreement for the return of the hostages".
Speaking at the Intelligence Directorate, Gallant stressed that "we have entered the heart of Hamas' most sensitive locations and are using their intelligence against them."
A senior Hamas exponent, speaking on the Islamic faction Al Aqsa TV, however, warned that an Israeli ground action in Rafah would "break up the talks for the exchange of hostages".
“What Netanyahu and his Nazi army have not achieved in more than four months,” he continued, “he will not achieve, no matter how long the war lasts.”
Mohammed Nizal, a senior Hamas figure, later told Al Jazeera that talks to reach a ceasefire are ongoing, in which the movement is demanding "the minimum" when it comes to their demands.
“Netanyahu wants the war to continue to stay in power and he doesn't want to lose his right-wing coalition,” Nizal said.
“He wants to continue fighting until the US elections in November so that Trump wins,” he added.
The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health announced that since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement, 28,176 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip, mostly women, children and adolescents.
It also reported a total of 112 deaths in the past 24 hours and 67,784 wounded since the war began on October 7.
Al Jazeera says that 25 people died and dozens more were injured in an Israeli bombing that hit a residential building east of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Red Crescent says four people were killed and eight injured following an Israeli shelling that hit a house in the al-Hakr neighborhood of Deir al-Balah in the center of the Gaza Strip yesterday afternoon.
Al Jazeera and the Palestinian news agency Wafa say a 19-year-old boy was shot dead in the head by Israeli soldiers last night while riding in a vehicle in Kharb al-Lahm, West Bank. .
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