Biden, Netanyahu to speak by phone following Gaza aid deaths

U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are set to speak on Thursday in their first phone call since an Israeli strike on a humanitarian convoy killed seven aid workers in Gaza.

Biden has led a chorus of international anger over the attack on employees of U.S.-based World Central Kitchen, who were distributing desperately needed food to a population on the verge of famine.

"I can confirm President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu will speak tomorrow," a U.S. official told AFP on Wednesday.

The call comes after Biden said he was "outraged and heartbroken" by the deadly strike, whose victims included a U.S.-Canadian dual national, along with three Britons, a Pole, an Australian and a Palestinian.

Biden's sharpening rhetoric, and insistence that Israel do more to protect aid workers and civilians, has indicated growing frustrations with how ally Israel is conducting its war on Hamas.

Israel has taken responsibility for the strike on the aid workers, which it called a mistake, and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant instructed the armed forces to "maintain an open and transparent line of communication" with international organisations conducting relief work.

But Biden has emphasised the attack — which hit WCK-branded vehicles after the organisation said it had coordinated movements with Israeli forces — was not a "stand-alone incident".

At least 196 aid workers have been killed in Gaza in the almost six-month-old war, nearly three times the toll inflicted by any other single conflict in a year, according to a U.N. coordinator.

U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters the strike was "emblematic of a larger problem and evidence of why distribution of aid in...