U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, reaffirming his "ironclad" support for Israel as it continues its military operations against militants in Gaza and Lebanon and considers a response to recent Iranian missile attacks.
The phone call was their first conversation since August 21. The White House said Vice President Kamala Harris joined the call.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the call was "direct and productive" and lasted for around a half an hour.
In a formal readout, the White House said the leaders discussed "the urgent need to renew diplomacy to release the hostages held by Hamas" in Gaza as well as to address the humanitarian costs of the war.
Netanyahu has been considering options to retaliate against Tehran after it launched about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1, in a major escalation of the yearlong conflict between Israel and Iran's regional armed proxies. Jean-Pierre told reporters that the discussion continues about the potential response.
Biden has said he would not support an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites.
Shortly after the leaders' call, Israel's defense minister said in a post on X that Israel's retaliation against Iran would be "deadly, precise and surprising."
"Those who try to harm the State of Israel will pay a price," Yoav Gallant wrote in Hebrew on the platform X.
War in Gaza
Meanwhile, Palestinian health officials said Wednesday that Israeli strikes overnight killed at least 18 people. The Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps were hit in the central part of the Gaza Strip, as well as the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north.
Israel's military said Wednesday it carried out air and ground attacks in Gaza targeting Hamas militants.
The United Nations warned that the fighting and repeated Israeli evacuation orders have left Palestinian civilians with nowhere safe to go.
"Gaza is unrecognizable. A sea of rubble. A graveyard for tens of thousands of people, including far too many children," Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. Palestinian relief and works agency, UNRWA, told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
"Almost the entire population is displaced. People have been forced to flee multiple times, searching for safety that does not exist."
He said he was especially alarmed about the situation in northern Gaza.
"Hundreds of thousands of people are again being pushed to move to the south, where living conditions are intolerable," he said.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield also expressed concern about the latest Israeli evacuation orders in the north.
"We are particularly concerned that Palestinian civilians have nowhere safe to go," she said. "Already, there are devastating reports of the squalid conditions in the humanitarian zone in southern and central Gaza, where more than 1.5 million displaced civilians have fled."
She said Israel must "take urgent steps" to address the "catastrophic" humanitarian conditions. Thomas-Greenfield also said Washington expects that Palestinian civilians, including those evacuated from the north, will be permitted to return to their communities and rebuild.
"Consistent with [U.N. Security Council] Resolution 2735, there must be no demographic or territorial change in the Gaza Strip, including any actions that reduce the territory of Gaza," she said.
Lebanese front
In Biden's call with the Israeli prime minister, the White House said, he "emphasized the need for a diplomatic arrangement to safely return both Lebanese and Israeli civilians to their homes on both sides of the Blue Line" — the demarcation line separating Lebanon and Israel.
Biden also reaffirmed Israel's right to protect its citizens from Hezbollah missile and rocket fire "while emphasizing the need to minimize harm to civilians, in particular in the densely populated areas of Beirut."
Israel Defense Forces conducted new air and ground operations Wednesday targeting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The IDF said it has struck 1,100 Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon since it began what it characterizes as a "limited incursion" on Oct 1.
The Israeli military also announced that three of its personnel were injured in combat on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon told reporters that six people were injured, two of them critically, in a mass stabbing attack Wednesday in the northern city of Hadera. In Kiryat Shmona, he said, Hezbollah rocket fire killed a man and woman out walking their dog.
The United Nations has warned of the growing humanitarian crisis in Lebanon, noting one-quarter of the tiny nation is now under Israeli military evacuation orders. More than 1 million people are displaced, with thousands sleeping in makeshift shelters and along Beirut's beachfront.
The U.N.'s top diplomat in Lebanon appealed for an immediate cease-fire, saying the situation is "dire."
"A rational discussion will not take place under fire," Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert told reporters in a video briefing from Beirut.
She said a pause in fighting could open the space for diplomatic efforts. She also called for a realistic road map to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701. That resolution, adopted at the end of the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, includes a call for Hezbollah to withdraw its fighters to the north of Lebanon's Litani River and for Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon.
After a relative period of calm, Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel following Hamas' October 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel, displacing tens of thousands on both sides of the border and leading to the current escalation.
In Israel, about 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attack that triggered the yearlong war in Gaza. Some 250 people were also taken hostage, with around 100 of them still being held, and about one-third of them believed to be dead.
Israel's military campaign of air and ground attacks in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 97,700, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between militants and civilians but has said just more than half were women and children.
Both Hamas and Hezbollah have been designated terrorist organizations by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Israel and others.
VOA U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer, VOA White House Bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara and VOA reporter Natasha Mozgovaya contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
