Biden under pressure to force ceasefire by withholding arms

Critics of Joe Biden’s handling of the Gaza conflict are convinced his approach has reached its limits and he needs to withhold weapons to push Israel into a ceasefire.

Protesters demand a ceasefire in Israel after the aid workers’ deaths. Picture: Getty Images.

Joe Biden’s strongly-worded “outrage” at the deadly Israeli strike on a convoy of aid workers has failed to quell growing pressure from Democrats and American Muslim leaders to restrict military aid to force a ceasefire.

Biden said he was outraged and heartbroken by the deaths of seven humanitarian workers from World Central Kitchen and that Israel had not done enough to protect civilians.

Critics of his handling of the conflict are convinced that Biden’s approach has reached its limits and he needs to withhold weapons to push Israel into a ceasefire and open up humanitarian aid.

Under a ten-year mandate agreed in 2016 the United States promised to provide dollars 38 billion of weapons to Israel between 2019 and 2028. Since the attack by Hamas on October 7 the administration has approved two large sales, of 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition and equipment worth dollars 106.5 million and the sale of 155mm artillery shells and equipment worth dollars 147.5 million, as well as 100 smaller transactions.

Medics prepare the bodies of World Central Kitchen workers, who were killed in Israeli air strikes, for their return to their home counties. Picture: Getty Images.

John Kirby, the US national security council spokesman, said the Biden administration was doing all it could to urge consideration of Palestinian civilians and that the postponed meeting with an Israeli delegation to discuss protecting innocent people in Rafah would hopefully take place next week. Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, called off the meeting last week.

“We want to see them do things differently to prevent civilian casualties, absolutely,” Kirby said at a White House briefing yesterday (Wednesday). “That’s been an ongoing conversation that we’ve been having with them for many months.”

He said the Biden administration had confidence in the Israeli investigation of the seven deaths and had no plans for an American inquiry. He added that the United States had not yet found any breach of international humanitarian law by Israel in Gaza.

Pramila Jayapal, chairwoman of the left-wing Progressive group of Democrats in Congress, posted on Twitter/X: “We must stop US military aid used for indiscriminate killing.”

A Ramadan event at the White House on Tuesday evening was poorly attended as Muslim groups stayed away in protest at Biden’s handling of the war. Only one Palestinian-American, a doctor who volunteered in a hospital that closed after a raid by Israeli forces, spoke to Biden before walking out. “I basically pleaded that the United States needs to intervene,” Thaer Ahmad told The Wall Street Journal.

Jacob Flickinger, 33, the American-Canadian aid worker killed in Monday’s bombing, left a partner, Sandy, and a one-year-old son, according to a GoFundme page set up to raise money for his family.

The Times