Reuters – U.S. President Joe Biden will pose “tough questions” in meetings with Israeli leaders during a Middle East trip that has been upended by a strike on a Gaza hospital on Tuesday in which hundreds of Palestinians were killed.
Biden is flying to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and show U.S. support in the aftermath of an attack on Israeli villages and military bases by Gaza-based Hamas gunmen that killed hundreds of people on Oct. 7.
After his meetings in Israel, Biden had planned to travel to Jordan for meetings with Arab leaders, but that stop was canceled after the strike on the hospital which Palestinian officials blamed on Israel and Israel blamed on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.
Biden will meet with Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet and seek a sense of Israel’s plans and objectives in the days and weeks ahead, White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Air Force One during the flight to Tel Aviv.
“He’ll be asking some tough questions, he’ll be asking them as a friend, as a true friend of Israel, but he’ll be asking some questions of them,” Kirby said.
Israel is expected to launch a ground offensive in Gaza; the United States has been pressing Israelis to allow humanitarian aid in to help civilians.
Kirby declined to specify the nature of the questions Biden intended to ask beyond “what their plans are going forward.”
