A day after President Biden claimed that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “hurts Israel more than he helps Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu dismissed that claim as a “mistake,” escalating the leaders’ increasingly public feud.
Mr. Netanyahu, in an interview with Politico, disputed Mr. Biden’s assessment of Israel’s military strategy in the Gaza Strip and said his policies represented what the “vast majority” of Israelis wanted.
“I don’t know exactly what the president meant, but if he meant by that that I am pursuing private policies against the majority, the desire of the majority of Israelis, and that this harms Israel’s interests, then he is wrong on both counts,” said Mr. Netanyahu.
He added, “These are policies supported by the vast majority of Israelis. They support the action we are taking to destroy the remaining terrorist factions of Hamas.”
Mr. Netanyahu responded to Mr. Biden’s comments on Saturday in an interview with MSNBC. Mr. Biden rebuked Mr. Netanyahu for the rising civilian death toll in Gaza, even as he reaffirmed American support for Israel.
“He has the right to defend Israel, the right to continue to go after Hamas, but he has to, he has to, he has to pay more attention to the innocent lives that are being lost as a consequence of the actions that were taken,” Mr. Biden said.
“In my view, it hurts Israel more than it helps Israel,” Mr. Biden said, appearing to refer to Mr. Netanyahu’s military strategy. “It’s against what Israel stands for and I think it’s a big mistake. So I want to see a ceasefire.”
Asked by the interviewer, Jonathan Capehart, if he had a “red line” that Mr. Netanyahu should not cross, such as a ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, Mr. Biden responded with confusion, but said that “his defense Israel is still critical.”
“He cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead as a consequence” of pursuing Hamas, the president said, referring to Mr Netanyahu.
“There are other ways to deal with, to reach, to deal with the trauma that Hamas has caused,” he added.
Mr. Biden did not elaborate. Gaza’s health ministry said more than 31,000 people have been killed in the enclave since Israel launched the war in response to the October 7 attacks by Hamas.
But the president’s comments underscored once again the delicate position the United States finds itself in: arming Israel while simultaneously providing humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Mr. Biden has been more vocal in recent days about the plight of civilians in Gaza, urging Mr. Netanyahu not to go ahead with his stated plans to launch a major ground offensive in Rafah without a plan to protect those there. More than a million Gazans have sought refuge in the city, many displaced by Israeli military orders to move to so-called safe zones.
In the Politico interview, Mr Netanyahu reiterated that Israel still intended to invade Rafah: “We will go there. We’re not going to leave. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is, that October 7th doesn’t happen again. It will never happen again.”
When asked about Mr. Biden’s remarks, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz declined to say what they suggested about the relationship between the US and Israel.
“I’m trying to separate the rhetoric from the substance: The goals of the war and the state of Israel are simple – to free all the hostages and dismantle the military and leadership power of Hamas,” Mr. Katz told Kan, the audience of Israel. radio network on Sunday. “The United States supports these goals as Biden emphasized yesterday.”
He added that Israel had said there would be a plan to evacuate civilians from Rafah before any ground invasion and reiterated that his country’s military does not “deliberately harm civilians.”
The push for Rafah has prompted warnings from the United States and other allies about the potential humanitarian cost. The United Nations has said a ground invasion of Rafah could have “huge consequences for all of Gaza, including the hundreds of thousands who are at serious risk of starvation and famine in the north.”
Under Mr. Biden’s direction, US military cargo planes have dropped food, water and other aid into Gaza several times in recent days. The latest airdrop came on Monday, when said the US military dropped more than 27,000 “equivalent meals” and nearly 26,000 bottles of water in northern Gaza.
In addition, the Biden administration announced plans to build a floating jetty off the coast of Gaza to deliver more supplies to the enclave.
But US officials have acknowledged that dropping aid from the air and building a pier would not be as effective as delivering supplies by land, an option Israel has largely blocked.
Gabby Sobelman contributed to the report.
