Biden warns Netanyahu US support for Gaza war now depends on Israel protecting

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President Joe Biden told Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that future US policy towards Israel will be determined by whether its government takes action to protect aid workers and civilians in Gaza.

The warning came in their first telephone conversation since Israel Defense Force drones fired three missiles into a World Central Kitchen aid convoy.

In a readout of the call, the White House said Mr Biden told the Israeli leader that the strike on aid workers and the “overall humanitarian situation” in Gaza were both “unacceptable” and “made clear” to Mr Netanyahu that US policy will hinge on whether his government can “announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers”.

“He made clear that US policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action on these steps,” the White House said.

The White House also noted that Mr Biden “underscored that an immediate ceasefire is essential to stabilize and improve the humanitarian situation and protect innocent civilians” and “urged” Mr Netanyahu to “empower his negotiators to conclude a deal without delay” so hostages held by Hamas can be returned home.

Speaking to reporters at the daily White House press briefing, national security communications adviser John Kirby declined to go into detail about any possible future policy decisions, but stressed that the US wants to see “some real changes on the Israeli side” that go beyond merely making statements about changes.

“It’s not just about the announcement of concrete steps and changes in their policies, but it’s the execution of those announcements and those decisions and implementing them as we obviously will watch closely and monitor how they do on the commitments that they make,” he said.

“If there’s no changes to their policy and their approaches, then there’s going to have to be changes to ours,” he said.

Mr Kirby said it’s clear that “there are things that need to be done” by the Israeli government because “there are too many civilians being killed” and “the risk to aid workers is unacceptable”, but he stressed that the US will look to see what actions Israel takes before taking any further actions itself.

He also told reporters that the call was “very direct, very businesslike, very professional on both sides” and said Mr Biden had “felt strongly that it was time to talk to Prime Minister Netanyahu about his concerns”.

“The president made clear that absent changes in the protection of civilians on the ground, absent changes to the volume of humanitarian assistance getting in, absent any movement on a ceasefire that will allow hostages to get out and more aid to get in, absent … a calming down, that he will have to reconsider his own policy choices with respect to Gaza”.

The call between the two leaders, their first interaction since the Israeli strike killed seven aid workers, including one American, comes as Mr Biden faces increasing pressure from a growing chorus of voices who are fed up with what they perceive as a callous refusal to rein in Israeli violations of international humanitarian law.

There have been calls for the American president to back a complete ceasefire in Gaza since the first weeks of Israel’s military response to the 7 October terrorist attacks by Hamas, but those insistent voices were once limited to the leftward flanks of his party and peace activists who could be dismissed as cranks by the experienced foreign policy hands in the Biden administration and ignored by most Democrats in Congress.

But as Israel has continued to carry out operations in protected facilities such as hospitals and has appeared to repeatedly target aid workers even as civilian protesters have blocked food deliveries from entering Gaza, the calls for Mr Biden to make full use of America’s leverage against its longtime ally have grown to encompass a diverse cross-section of the Democratic base, including prominent Jewish lawmakers such as Vermont’s Senator Bernie Sanders.

Mr Biden’s warning to Mr Netanyahu comes just days after he issued a statement saying he was “outraged and heartbroken” over the strike on the World Central Kitchen workers.

The statement, made public late on Tuesday, contained what might be the strongest criticism of Israel expressed over his half-century in public life.

In it, Mr Biden said incidents like the strike on the convoy by Israeli Defence Forces…