Biden held ‘direct,’ 30-minute call with Netanyahu, White House says

(CNN) — President Joe Biden held a “direct,” 30-minute phone call with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, their first conversation in almost two months and a chance to confer over Israel’s planned response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack.

“They discussed a range of issues,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said after the call ended, characterizing the conversation as an extension of discussions between US and Israeli officials about Israel’s response to the Iranian attack, which Biden has said should be “proportional.”

Yet neither she nor a short White House description of the call, sent a few hours afterward, provided any further details about Israel’s planned retaliation for last week’s missile barrage.

A White House readout described Biden condemning “unequivocally” the Iranian missile attack, without expanding any further on the two leaders’ discussion of Israel’s response, which was the reason for the call and which Biden has said should not include an attack on Iranian nuclear sites.

That the two leaders went 49 days without speaking amid rapidly escalating tensions in the Middle East was a sign of how fraught the relationship has become, and how distant the two leaders have become in their objectives for the region.

Biden has grown frustrated that Netanyahu appears to brush off his advice and recommendations, and to publicly reject his attempts at lowering regional temperatures. Some American officials have privately speculated the Israeli leader is looking to boost Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the weeks ahead of November’s election.

After US officials said last month they were caught off guard by Israel’s operation that killed Hezbollah’s leader in Lebanon, Biden’s aides made clear to their Israeli counterparts that it was essential to coordinate potentially escalatory actions, not least because it could place American troops in the region at risk.

Biden last week made clear he expected to speak with Netanyahu ahead of any potential reprisal against Iran for its missile onslaught. But it wasn’t clear after their phone call Wednesday how much had actually been shared about Israel’s plans.

The White House said the two leaders exchanged views on Lebanon, with Biden stressing the need for a “diplomatic arrangement” that would allow Israeli and Lebanese citizens displaced by violence along the border to return to their homes.

The phrasing appeared to intentionally stop short of calling for a ceasefire along the border, which the US had recently pressed for only to be rebuffed by Netanyahu.

Instead, Biden “affirmed Israel’s right to protect its citizens from Hezbollah, which has fired thousands of missiles and rockets into Israel over the past year alone, while emphasizing the need to minimize harm to civilians, in particular in the densely populated areas of Beirut.”

And he pushed again for “renewed diplomacy” to unstick stalled talks on securing a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza, where he also pressed for restoring humanitarian aid routes.

The leaders, the White House said, agreed “to remain in close contact over the coming days both directly and through their national security teams.”

Vice President Kamala Harris joined the call, which occurred midmorning, from New York on a secure phone line. She declined to elaborate on the conversation in an interview with CNN earlier Wednesday, telling Dana Bash it was classified. Still, she acknowledged the significance of the conversation, the first between Biden and Netanyahu since August 21.

“It was an important call,” she said.

Biden himself revealed little of his conversation when questioned about the call following remarks about Hurricane Milton, saying only that they didn’t “talk about the storm.”

But one visitor to the Oval Office following the phone call suggested the president had pressed Netanyahu on bringing about an end to violence in Gaza.

Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris, in Washington to mark 100 years of US-Ireland diplomatic ties, told reporters that Biden “left me in no doubt” that his call with Netanyahu was “a conversation of substance and of depth, in terms of actions that Israel needs to take, in terms of aid, humanitarian aid, in terms of bringing about a ceasefire.”

American officials have been hoping to limit Israel’s response to Iran, with the region on a razor’s edge as fears of a wider war grow. The president has said he opposes strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and recommended against a strike on Iranian oil reserves.

How much weight Biden’s words will carry is an open question, however, and US officials have grown highly skeptical at Netanyahu’s willingness to listen to Biden’s advice.

Still, Biden was insistent that he speak to Netanyahu ahead of Israel’s next steps, believing it important to convey his views directly.

The long period of silence between the two men was reflective of a relationship that has soured over the past year. Biden has grown frustrated that Netanyahu appears to brush off his advice and recommendations, and to publicly reject his attempts at lowering regional temperatures.

Biden has emerged from previous phone calls deeply angered by his interactions, including using curse words to describe his Israeli counterpart, according to accounts published this week by Washington journalist Bob Woodward.

The White House, which has declined to comment on those reports, has insisted the two men maintain a functional relationship.

“The President and the Prime Minister have known each other for decades, and their conversations, their relationship, have always been honest and direct, and this 30 minute conversation that they had today was also direct and very productive,” Jean-Pierre said.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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