US President Joe Biden on Sunday asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to launch a military operation in Rafah in the Gaza Strip “without a credible and realistic plan” to protect the population, the White House announced, AFP and Reuters reported.

Biden also called for “immediate and concrete measures to increase the pace and regularity of humanitarian aid to innocent Palestinian civilians,” according to a White House statement released after a phone conversation between the two leaders, according to Agerpres.

The discussion takes place at a time when the American leader has begun to raise his voice against Israel, according to AFP.

“I think, as you know, the response in Gaza, in the Gaza Strip, has been excessive,” the US president said Thursday night, recalling that there are “a lot of innocent people who are starving, in trouble, and this has to stop.” .

The international community is worried after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the army to prepare an offensive on Rafah, the last refuge of Palestinians displaced by the war from the rest of the Gaza Strip, which is now home to about 1.3 million Palestinians, more than half of the territory’s population.

In an interview broadcast on Sunday on the American channel ABC, the Israeli prime minister said that the Israeli army would provide a “safe corridor” before the planned assault on Rafah.

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