Biden to speak with Netanyahu for first time since Israeli airstrike killed 7 aid workers – Washington Examiner

President Joe Biden is expected to speak by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday for the first time since an Israeli airstrike killed multiple people working with Chef Jose Andres’s World Central Kitchen in Gaza.

Officials with the Israel Defense Forces have accepted responsibility for the seven humanitarian aid workers killed while maintaining the strike itself was an accident. White House officials had previously told reporters that Biden told Andres in a call earlier this week that he was “heartbroken” by the deaths.

Reports indicate the president plans to dress down Netanyahu, with officials telling CNN Biden has grown “increasingly frustrated” in the aftermath of the airstrike.

“Biden is pissed,” an official told Axios. “The temperature regarding Bibi is very high.”

The White House declined to comment on the call before it was held Thursday morning.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also gave no specifics about Biden’s call with Netanyahu, insisting to reporters during Wednesday’s briefing that the president has spoken with him “more than two dozen times since Oct. 7.”

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“Both governments talk to each other,” she added. “Their counterparts talk to each other every day.”

The president has been under increasing pressure as civilian casualties in Gaza continue to mount. Biden hosted Muslim American leaders at the White House on Tuesday for a closed-door discussion on the situation in Gaza, yet White House officials declined to say if they believed the discussion was a success on Wednesday.

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