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Israel opposition chief Yair Lapid heads to Washington amid US rift with Netanyahu
- Biden has stood by Israel through 6 months of war in Gaza, but the killing of 7 aid workers appears to have brought him the closest yet to a breaking point
- Lapid is expected to meet Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and other officials
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Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid was headed to Washington on Saturday for talks with top officials, his party said, as tensions between the two governments grow over Israel’s handling of the Gaza war.
Lapid is expected to meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and other officials, his centrist Yesh Atid party said on X.
US President Joe Biden has stood by Israel through six months of devastating fighting but the killing of seven aid workers in an Israeli air strike earlier this week appears to have brought him the closest yet to a breaking point.
In a tense 30-minute telephone call with Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, Biden told the Israeli prime minister that the strike was “unacceptable” and called for an “immediate ceasefire”.
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The two men discussed “the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering and the safety of aid workers,” the White House said afterwards.
It added that Biden “made clear that US policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action”.
Even before the killing of the aid workers, Washington had voiced concern over Netanyahu’s plans for a ground offensive in the far-southern city of Rafah, which is crammed with 1.5 million civilians, many of them displaced from other parts of Gaza.
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