Joe Biden is contemplating a trip to Israel following an invitation from Netanyahu. He would be the first head of state to visit Israel since the brutal attack on October 7th.
With the invasion of Gaza imminent, world leaders have stressed the importance of Israel limiting civilian damages in the Strip. Biden has also warned Israel to not occupy Gaza. NDTV World reports:
US President Joe Biden weighed a trip to Israel while he cautioned against long-term Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip on Sunday, as the White House sought to balance support for the country with fears that the regional crisis could escalate. No decision about whether to travel to Israel had yet been made, according to two people familiar with the internal discussions, and a spokesperson for the National Security Council said the White House didn’t have a trip to announce.
But the possible trip – and acknowledgment of concerns voiced by Palestinians in Gaza and Arab leaders across the region – were the latest signal that the US was trying to keep the crisis from further escalating.
If Hamas is completely removed from Gaza, the territory will need an occupation force. Leading solutions are in the form of Israeli troops, moderate Palestinian nationalists Fatah, or another part. Axios continues:
An Egyptian official told Axios that President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is organizing an international conference about the war in Gaza for later this week and Biden has been invited to participate.
Sisi earlier Sunday told Secretary of State Tony Blinken that Israel’s response to the Hamas attack has gone from self-defense to collective punishment, the Egyptian presidency said in a statement.
With Israel still waiting to launch its ground assault, Biden is starting to distance himself from the Jewish state. Israel will have to make a decision before other factors such as Iran join in complicating decisions.
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