US officials meet Benjamin Netanyahu’s advisers over tensions as Gaza war continues to intensify

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top advisers are set to meet White House adviser Jake Sullivan and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Washington DC amid tensions between the two allies over Israel’s war in Gaza, officials say.

Israeli national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and Ron Dermer, Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, will speak with Sullivan as a larger, more formal “strategic dialogue” meeting was being rescheduled, according to a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Blinken will meet with the Israelis at 3pm, according to a senior State Department official.

The White House official said the wider meeting has not been cancelled but that details were being finalised.

“In the meantime, meetings with Israeli officials are being held throughout the week at expert and senior levels on a range of topics,” the official said.

Netanyahu on Tuesday issued an English-language video in which he said Blinken had assured him that the Biden administration was working to lift restrictions on arms deliveries to Israel, an exchange the top US diplomat declined to confirm.

In a rare account of normally private diplomatic conversations, Netanyahu also said he told Blinken that it was “inconceivable” that in the past few months, the US was “withholding weapons and ammunitions” to Israel.

The comment prompted retorts from the Biden administration.

“We genuinely do not know what he’s talking about. We just don’t,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a briefing on Tuesday.

Blinken said weapons shipments - except one with large bombs - were moving as usual given Israel faced security threats beyond Gaza, including from Hezbollah and Iran.

He declined to comment on his private exchange with Netanyahu during a news conference on Tuesday.

The United States in May paused a shipment of 2000-pound and 500-pound bombs due to concern over the impact they could have in densely-populated areas but Israel was still due to get billions of dollars worth of US weaponry.

Scrutiny on Israel’s conduct in its military operation in Gaza has increased as the Palestinian death toll from the war has soared to more than 37,000, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave and reduced Gaza to a wasteland.

The war started when Palestinian Hamas militants stormed across the border and attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1200 people and taking 250 others hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Biden in April warned Israel that the US would stop supplying its weapons if Israeli forces make a major invasion of Rafah, a city in southern Gaza that is the last refuge for many displaced by the war.