Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet US President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday. (Photo: Jack Guez / Pool / Getty Images) 
Humanitarian groups were considering a mass vaccination campaign for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip after traces of variant poliovirus type 2 were found in water sources in the war-torn territory.
Israel struck targets around the Houthi-held Red Sea port of Hodeidah in Yemen, retaliating for a drone attack on Tel Aviv by the Iran-backed militants that killed a man and exposed a vulnerability in Israeli air defences.
A confident Netanyahu takes his message to a weakened Biden
For months, US President Joe Biden has been urging Israel to wind down its war on Hamas in Gaza. For more than a year, he pointedly withheld a White House invitation to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, hoping to use it as a reward for good behaviour.
Yet this coming week, as Israeli warplanes continue attacking Gaza, Biden is due to receive Netanyahu on Tuesday in the Oval Office, and, in a rare honour, the Israeli leader will address Congress. It’s a visit seen by many — including European and Arab allies — as a potent symbol of Biden’s declining ability to impose his will on the world.
“Biden has been perceived as old and weak by important Arab leaders for a while,” said Rym Momtaz, a researcher at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies. “The difficulty in shaping Israel’s conduct of its war in Gaza has only added to the perception of weakness.”
That’s a view shared increasingly among US allies, as well, according to European officials who asked not to be identified discussing confidential matters.
And that was before the surprise announcement Sunday from Biden (81) that he is dropping out of the presidential race but will serve out the rest of his term. Biden’s Covid diagnosis had already led Netanyahu to adjust his schedule for the meeting. The White House announced on Thursday that Netanyahu will also see Vice-President Kamala Harris, who Biden on Sunday endorsed as his chosen successor on the Democratic ticket in November.
By contrast, the visit has the whiff of triumph for Netanyahu (74). Summoned by both Republicans and Democrats for his fourth speech to Congress, he will surpass Winston Churchill as the world leader with the most invitations. Arriving in grand fashion on a new plane with living quarters and conference room, the country’s longest-serving premier, who presided over the worst security breach in its history, one that left 1,200 dead, remains likely to stay in office at least through early 2025.
“It’s a visit doomed to succeed,” lamented Nimrod Novik, a former top Israeli government adviser and Netanyahu opponent, who sent a letter to all members of Congress on behalf of 530 former top security officials rejecting his policies.
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Netanyahu is in a better position than many would have predicted just months ago. His troops say they’re wrapping up major operations in Gaza and have largely dismantled Hamas’ military infrastructure. They believe they killed its military leader Mohammed Deif recently. Israeli assets — bonds and currency — have strengthened this month, recovering their heavy losses early in the year.
Still, this is a fraught moment for Israel and for Netanyahu, whose popularity remains near lows. After more than nine months of warfare, dozens of hostages taken on 7 October remain in captivity. Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar is still at large. More than 38,000 have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Lebanon’s Hezbollah is firing missiles at its north where tens of thousands have been forced out of their homes. A drone from Yemen’s Houthis penetrated Tel Aviv on Friday, killing a man and spreading terror. Israel retaliated a day later with strikes on a Houthi-held port in Yemen.
For Biden, a president who prides himself on his foreign policy prowess, the relationship with Israel since 7 October has underlined the challenges he faces — even before the latest string of electoral setbacks at home.
Privately, US officials have long been frustrated by Netanyahu, but worry that being too confrontational jeopardises Washington’s ability to influence Israel’s behaviour when it comes to important US priorities, including the humanitarian situation inside Gaza. Results there have been limited — the White House this month announced it was giving up on a failed plan to deliver aid with a temporary pier — and done little to calm the uproar of protest from Biden’s allies among progressive Democrats over his embrace of Israel.
“The administration has suggested quietly and not so quietly what it thought that the Israeli government should do,” said Ivo Daalder, former US ambassador to Nato and chief executive officer of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “In the main, the Israeli government has not listened to it.”
Netanyahu will depart Israel on Monday morning, his office said in a statement. It’s the Israeli premier’s first trip outside Israel since its war against Hamas began in October.
Poliovirus traces detected in Gaza, raising fears of outbreak
Humanitarian groups were considering a mass vaccination campaign for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip after traces of variant poliovirus type 2 were found in water sources in the war-torn territory.
The disease was detected in six locations in Gaza, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday, adding that no cases of paralysis had been identified so far.
Geneva-based WHO said it was working with partners — including Unicef and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) — to conduct a risk assessment.
Polio vaccination rates in Gaza before the war were “optimal,” according to the organisation.
Israel on Sunday confirmed the resurgence of the virus, which can be spread by contaminated water and direct person-to-person contact, and said it would offer booster shots to its soldiers operating in and around the Gaza Strip.
Israel strikes Yemeni port city in reply to Houthi drone hit
Israel struck targets around the Houthi-held Red Sea port of Hodeidah in Yemen, retaliating for a drone attack on Tel Aviv by the Iran-backed militants that killed a man and exposed a vulnerability in Israeli air defences.
Saturday’s airstrikes targeted a power station and fuel storage sites, killing three people and wounding 87 others, the Yemen-based group said. A Houthi-run television channel showed flames and smoke raging in the installations it said were hit. Netanyahu said the port was used as a gateway for Iranian weapons supplies to the Houthis.
“This operation struck targets 1,800 kilometres from our borders,” Netanyahu said in a video statement late Saturday. “It clarifies to our enemies that there is no place where the long arm of the State of Israel won’t reach.”
Mohammed Abdulsalam, a Houthi spokesperson, said in a statement on X that the targets were civilian installations and that the group would continue its attacks on Israel and commercial ship traffic in the Red Sea.
Israel’s strike was among the most complex and longest-distance missions in its air force’s history, said Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari. Israel carried out the strikes alone and gave its allies advance warning, another military official said.
The Houthi spokesperson vowed an “inevitable” and “huge” retaliation to Israel’s assault and said that the group had fired ballistic missiles targeting Eilat in Israel’s south. The IDF said on Sunday morning that it intercepted a surface-to-surface missile approaching from the Red Sea.
Saudi Arabia’s Defence Ministry said on Sunday that the kingdom had “no relation or involvement” in targeting Hodeidah, adding that the country will not allow any entity to violate its airspace.
President Joe Biden’s administration has been in regular contact with Israeli officials since the Friday morning strike on Tel Aviv, and fully recognised Israel’s right to self-defence, said a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council.
The IDF said the projectile that struck Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial capital, was fired from Yemen in what would be the first deadly attack on the Jewish state by the Houthis. It was an Iranian-built Samad 3 drone repurposed to fly longer distances, according to the military.
One man was killed and eight people injured in Friday’s strike. Media showed footage of a low-flying drone coming into Tel Aviv from the west, over the Mediterranean Sea.
“The first time that the Houthis harmed an Israeli citizen, we struck them,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement. “And we will do this in any place where it may be required.”
Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal ‘inside 10-yard line’, says Blinken
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the months-long, US-led effort to negotiate a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas militants was close to succeeding, but cautioned there were still some thorny issues to tackle.
“I believe we’re inside the 10-yard line and driving toward the goal line in getting an agreement that would produce a ceasefire, get the hostages home and put us on a better track to try and build lasting peace and stability,” Blinken said at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado on Friday.
“We also know that with anything, the last 10 yards are often the hardest,” he said, leaning further into the American football metaphor. “So I don’t want to be in any way naive about it.”
“The question now is finishing the negotiation of some critical details,” he added.
The comments from the top US diplomat reflect growing optimism within the Biden administration that the US — along with Egyptian and Qatari negotiators — might be close to winding down the war after nearly 10 months.
Negotiations have recently focused on several key sticking points, including which hostages should be released, people with knowledge of the talks said earlier this week.
Read more: Israel-Hamas truce talks said to face four key sicking points
The others include Israeli demands that Hamas be barred from northern Gaza, that Israeli forces retain control of a key southern border corridor and that they should not be bound to an indefinite ceasefire. DM
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