President Biden warns Israel of thinning patience amid humanitarian situation in Gaza

Geoff Bennett:

Let's shift our focus now back to the Israel-Hamas war and the explicit warnings from President Biden and U.S. officials to the Israeli government that they are nearly out of patience with how it's conducting the war in Gaza.

The administration said it's weighing changing its policy toward Israel if the Israeli military doesn't do more to improve the humanitarian situation.

And Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, one of President Biden's closest allies in the Senate, for the first time is signaling his openness to that idea. And he joins us now.

Thank you for being with us.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE):

Thank you, Geoff. Great to be on with you.

Geoff Bennett:

So, you said yesterday: "We're at that point of potentially placing some conditions on aid to Israel."

What types of conditions or restrictions do you support, and why?

Sen. Chris Coons:

Geoff, let me be clear about what I said yesterday.

In Rafah, in the very south of Gaza, there's more than a million Palestinian refugees pressed up against the border with Egypt. They have nowhere to go. And they're there because the IDF has been carrying out a monthslong campaign against Hamas that began soon after the October 7 terrorist attacks and has gradually worked its way down Gaza from the north to the center to the south.

What I said was, if Israel ignores our pleas for them to provide for these civilians, these refugees, to get out of the way of their military campaign, and they go into Rafah at scale, bombing and attacking with large-scale infantry units, then I would consider conditioning aid to Israel, the munitions that we provide for that combat, because it would inevitably lead to significant civilian casualties.

That may be different from what others are saying or what others have raised, but that's what I was trying to convey to the Israeli leadership. Don't go into Rafah with a large-scale attack without providing for humanitarian relief and for civilians to relocate.

Geoff Bennett:

Understood.

Now, the U.S. provides Israel with weapons systems and munitions not just for war fighting, as you well know, but also for defense and deterrence. What about this argument that conditioning that aid would put Israel at risk, especially in this environment, when you have actors like Hezbollah, Iran, Iranian proxies that would likely take advantage of that?

Sen. Chris Coons:

I would not put any limitations on the critical defensive munitions, like the Iron Dome system that we developed in partnership with Israel.

I recognize that Israel's greatest foe in the region, Iran, is likely to be taking action against Israeli interests in the coming weeks because of their ongoing conflict, and that Hezbollah, which is an Iranian proxy in the south of Lebanon, is continuing to launch rockets and missiles into the north of Israel.

So, to be clear, I would support ongoing military partnership between the United States and Israel for Israel's defense.

Geoff Bennett:

Well, help us understand President Biden's thinking on this. I know that you're in close touch with him.

He has faced increased pressure to take a harder line for months. He has been steadfast in his support of Israel. But he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday that continued U.S. support for the war in Gaza depends on new steps to protect civilians. Help us understand his evolution this.

Sen. Chris Coons:

Well, in my view, President Biden is in no way abandoning the Israeli people or the longstanding, the decades-long, deep U.S.-Israel partnership.

But a number of us, myself included, have real differences with Prime Minister Netanyahu's very conservative government, with his ministers like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who have been acting in ways that have slowed the delivery or blocked the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

So I was encouraged to hear that, after yesterday's conversation between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Biden, the Netanyahu government has now agreed to open the Erez Gate in the far north of Gaza, where the hunger is at its most acute, the Port of Ashdod to allow for greater deliveries of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the route by which Jordan is delivering aid into Gaza.

That's a small, but important step that shows a willingness to change direction. I also was encouraged that the IDF has now released the results of its review of the attack on the World Central Kitchen workers that led to the tragic death of seven. The IDF has disciplined several senior leaders and has made it clear that this was in violation of their policies and practices.

There's more that needs to be done and there's more that needs to change, but that's an encouraging step forward. And that shows how President Biden's engagement with this far right government of Prime Minister Netanyahu has had some positive impact.

Geoff Bennett:

On that point, why has the killing of those seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, why has that shifted the debate and shifted the calculus of this White House and top Democrats like yourself in a way that the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians apparently had not?

Sen. Chris Coons:

Well, frankly, this has been steadily building over months.

When I was last in the region and last in Israel, the head of the World Food Program, Cindy McCain, raised with me the fact that there had been dozens and dozens of aid workers killed, overwhelmingly Palestinians. And I raised that issue directly with Prime Minister Netanyahu. This is now back in February.

I pressed him to address the deconfliction issue. And he said that he would. I think that the World Central Kitchen issue has brought it into sharper focus because chef Jose Andres is well-known, well-regarded, and World Central Kitchen has delivered critical hunger and humanitarian relief in so many other places around the world, from Ukraine to California to Puerto Rico.

So it has helped sharpen this issue. But, frankly, Geoff, this has been building for months, the concern that many of us have about there being far too many civilian casualties in Gaza over what is now a six-month conflict.

Geoff Bennett:

That is Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware.

Thanks for your time this evening, sir. We appreciate it.

Sen. Chris Coons:

Thank you, Geoff.