US President Joe Biden has demanded that Israel call off the war in Gaza for up to eight weeks to allow “total access” of much-needed aid into the shattered territory.
Following weeks of tension with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the president issued some of his most direct language yet in calling Mr Netanyahu’s approach to the war a “mistake”.
The comments in a TV interview were released as Lord Cameron on a visit to Washington expressed “grave concerns” about Israel’s conduct in the war against Hamas.
But the Foreign Secretary ruled out suspending UK arms exports to Israel following the deaths of seven aid workers including three Britons in a botched Israeli air strike, and insisted the Government would keep private its legal advice over whether Mr Netanyahu’s forces are guilty of war crimes.
The president’s interview with Univision, a US Spanish-language network, was recorded shortly after the air strike and released on Tuesday.
Regarding the Israeli leader, Mr Biden said: "I think what he's doing is a mistake. I don't agree with his approach."
The president added: "What I'm calling for is for the Israelis to just call for a ceasefire, allow for the next six, eight weeks, total access to all food and medicine going into the country.”
Israel has been coming under mounting international pressure over the scale of death and destruction in Gaza, following the attacks by Hamas on October 7.
But the president is also under domestic pressure from Arab-Americans and other Democratic voters in the buildup to his election rematch against Donald Trump in November.
US arms supplies, the mainstay of Israel’s war machine, have continued uninterrupted but the Biden administration did allow a ceasefire resolution to proceed at the United Nations Security Council last month.
The Hamas attack killed 1,200 Israelis. Israel's subsequent military assault on Hamas-governed Gaza has killed more than 33,000, according to the local health ministry, displaced nearly all of its 2.3 million population and led to allegations of genocide that Israel denies.
UN agencies have stepped up warnings that Gazans are at increasing risk of famine with Israel imposing tight restrictions on the amounts of aid that can get in by road.
Speaking alongside US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday, Lord Cameron reiterated UK support for Israel’s right to self-defence but warned that more aid workers could be killed without a change of course.
On aid, he added: “We want to see 500 trucks a day, we want to see the water switched back on, we want to see Ashdod [a port in southern Israel] and a northern crossing point opened and, crucially, we want to see this deconfliction, because getting aid to Gaza on its own is not enough.”
The Foreign Secretary added that Britain and the United States may need to start looking at a “plan B” for the conflict if Mr Netanyahu proceeds with a threatened attack on the Gazan city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering.
He said that plan would need to address “what can humanitarian and other organisations do to make sure that if there is a conflict in Rafah that people can achieve safety, they can get food, they can get water, they can get medicine, and people are kept safe”.
Lord Cameron also kept up pressure on Trump allies in the US House of Representatives to unfreeze $60 billion in military aid to Ukraine. But following a surprise meeting over dinner with the former president in Florida on Monday night, he was denied a meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson, who reportedly could not find the time.
The pro-Trump hardliners have threatened to unseat Mr Johnson as Speaker if he proceeds with a vote on the aid package, which has already passed through the Senate.
Lord Cameron said: “It's not for foreign politicians to tell legislators in another country what to do. It's just that I'm so passionate about the importance of defending Ukraine against this aggression that I think it is absolutely in the interests of US security” to unblock the aid.
