Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that his maximalist war aims are supported by “the overwhelming majority” of his citizens, and that US President Joe Biden was “wrong” to suggest that his actions in Gaza are “hurting Israel.”
With the death toll in IDF’s Gaza operation passing 31,000, Biden told MSNBC on Saturday that Netanyahu should “pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost” in the Palestinian enclave. Biden went on to say that Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than he’s helping Israel,” and that a planned Israeli invasion of Rafah – a city in the south of the strip where more than a million Gazans have sought refuge – would be a “red line” for Washington.
“I don’t know exactly what the president meant,” Netanyahu told German tabloid Bild on Sunday, “but if he meant…that I’m pursuing private policies against the wish of the majority of Israelis and that this is hurting the interests of Israel, then he is wrong on both counts.”