USA

President Joe Biden was quick to show solidarity with Israel after the October 7 Hamas attacks, but six months on, American voters have become increasingly unhappy with his handling of the Gaza crisis, according to polling for Newsweek.

In the aftermath of the attacks by militants in which over 1,200 were killed and 253 were taken hostage, Biden stood next to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said that his country is “not alone.”

The Biden administration persists in granting victories to Hamas and its primary supporters, Qatar and Iran, and in a way that only strengthens their positions in support of terrorism.

On March 25, the Biden administration declined to exercise its veto power at the United Nations Security Council, effectively betraying Israel and aligning itself with Hamas. This decision was perceived by Israel’s enemies in Iran, Qatar, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iraq as the United States finally having abandoned Israel. The American abstention looked as if the US had adopted Hamas’s position at long last — and during the height of the conflict!

“Be certain that Iran’s response to the targeting of its Damascus consulate is inevitable,” said Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a televised speech on Friday. Israel appears to be taking the Iranian proxy’s warning seriously.

Nasrallah’s warnings mirror the rhetoric broadcast by the Iranian regime in response to an Israeli strike on an informal Iranian diplomatic consulate in Syria on Monday, in which two Quds Force operatives — Brigadier Generals Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, were killed. Israeli media has reported on speculation that Iranian retaliation could take the form of a missile attack on Israel launched directly from Iranian territory, but it could just as easily involve a volley of any number of the thousands of missiles in Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon. Israel has called up reservists in anticipation of an Iranian reprisal, warned the Biden administration of its intent to respond to an Iranian attack, evacuated diplomatic personnel from a number of embassies and consulates worldwide, and warned Israeli officials to lay low for the time being.

President Joe Biden pushed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take concrete steps to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza in a call between the two leaders on Thursday and urged his counterpart to agree to an “immediate ceasefire” deal with Hamas.

Biden linked continued U.S. support for Israel to Netanyahu’s willingness to take “measurable” steps to reduce civilian casualties after a group of aid workers were killed in an accidental Israeli airstrike while delivering food in Gaza on Monday.

WASHINGTON—A secret memorandum that expanded intelligence sharing with Israel after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack has led to growing concerns in Washington about whether the information is contributing to civilian deaths, according to people familiar with the issue.

Among the worries is that there is little independent oversight to confirm that U.S.-supplied intelligence isn’t used in strikes that unnecessarily kill civilians or damage infrastructure, the people said.