Biden held 'direct,' 30-minute call with Netanyahu, White House says

Source: CNN Politics

Updated 6:43 PM EDT, Wed October 9, 2024


CNN — President Joe Biden held a “direct,” 30-minute phone call with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, their first conversation in almost two months and a chance to confer over Israel’s planned response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack.

“They discussed a range of issues,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said after the call ended, characterizing the conversation as an extension of discussions between US and Israeli officials about Israel’s response to the Iranian attack, which Biden has said should be “proportional.” Yet neither she nor a short White House description of the call, sent a few hours afterward, provided any further details about Israel’s planned retaliation for last week’s missile barrage.

A White House readout described Biden condemning “unequivocally” the Iranian missile attack, without expanding any further on the two leaders’ discussion of Israel’s response, which was the reason for the call and which Biden has said should not include an attack on Iranian nuclear sites.

That the two leaders went 49 days without speaking amid rapidly escalating tensions in the Middle East was a sign of how fraught the relationship has become, and how distant the two leaders have become in their objectives for the region.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/09/politics/netanyahu-biden-harris-call/index.html