President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are holding their first call since an Israeli airstrike killed seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen, including an American-Canadian citizen, White House officials say.
Biden talked with Netanyahu on Thursday starting around noon, officials told The Post — and is expected to express his “frustrations” regarding Monday’s airstrike on the humanitarian workers who were delivering food to northern Gaza, a senior administration official told CNN.
The president, along with other world leaders, had expressed his outrage over the airstrike, which also killed three British nationals, along with relief workers from Australia and Poland, as well as their Palestinian driver.
Biden has since demanded accountability and transparency from Israel regarding the attack, which Netanyahu has apologized for despite adding, “This happens in war.”
The incident, which is currently under an Israeli investigation, serves as the latest blow to Biden and Netanyahu’s already tense relationship amid the war in Gaza and the growing civilian casualties.
Biden had privately called Netanyahu a “bad f–king guy” in February, according to sources close to the president, and the two had infamously gone days without speaking following Biden’s comments that the war in Gaza has gone “over the top.”
The president also allegedly slammed the phone on Netanyahu back in December while criticizing the prime minister’s handling of the war and lack of progress on the hostage exchange deal.
While Biden has reaffirmed that the US backs Israel in its war against Hamas terrorists, US Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said the attack on aid workers justifies a review of whether the US will place conditions for delivering aid to Israel.
“I think we’re at that point,” Coons, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN. “I think we’re at the point where President Biden has said — and I have said and others have said — if Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister, were to order the IDF into Rafah at scale, they were to drop thousand pound bombs and send in a battalion to go after Hamas and make no provision for civilians or for humanitarian aid, that I would vote to condition aid to Israel.”
Coons’ comments came just before the president’s call with Netanyahu.
