Amid reports of growing frustration in the White House with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Joe Biden has been expressing his anger in private conversations but is not about to make any major changes in policy, NBC News reports.
Quoting “five people directly familiar with his comments,” the report says that Biden expressed frustration to people, including campaign donors, over his “inability to persuade Israel to change its military tactics in Gaza.”
Biden reportedly called Netanyahu an “asshole” in at least three recent instances, according to three anonymous sources.
“He just feels like this is enough,” one of the sources tells NBC. “It has to stop.”
Biden is also perplexed by Netanyahu’s rejection of arrangements that the US president believes would benefit Israel, such as Saudi normalisation in exchange for a political path towards a Palestinian state.
The US president is also apparently trying to persuade Israel to agree to a cease-fire with Hamas, but Netanyahu is “giving him hell.”
According to the reports, Biden believes Netanyahu wants to extend the war in order to maintain power.
According to sources, Biden believes that publicly criticising Netanyahu would be harmful.
Chronicle NG reports that the Israeli Prime Minister has declared that there will be no peace until Hamas authorities are eliminated and Palestinian society is ‘deradicalized.’
Shortly after Natanyahu made the remarks, Israeli forces bombed Gaza.
As intensive ground warfare continued, the army said it had struck more than 100 targets in 24 hours, including military structures and tunnel shafts in central Jabalia and Khan Yunis in the south.
