Israel has asked the White House to reschedule a high-level meeting on military plans for Gaza's southern city of Rafah that Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had abruptly canceled, officials said on Wednesday, in an apparent bid to ease tensions between the two allies.
Netanyahu called off a planned visit to Washington by a senior Israeli delegation after the U.S. allowed passage of a Gaza cease-fire resolution at the United Nations on Monday, marking a new war-time low in his relations with U.S. President Joe Biden.
The suspension of this week's meeting put a new obstacle in the way of efforts by the U.S., concerned about a deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, to get Netanyahu to consider alternatives to a ground invasion of Rafah, the last relatively safe haven for Palestinian civilians.