GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories, April  4, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - The leaders 
of the United States and Israel were set to speak on Thursday after Washington 
expressed "outrage" over Israel's killing of seven aid workers and growing 
concern over its military operations in besieged Gaza. 

       President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hold their 
first phone discussions since the Israeli strikes killed the employees of the 
US-based charity World Central Kitchen on Monday.

       The bodies of six foreign staff of WCK -- Australian, British, Polish and 
US-Canadian citizens -- were repatriated from Gaza via Egypt on Wednesday, 
while the Palestinian employee was laid to rest in Gaza.

       Biden said he was "outraged and heartbroken" by the attack which drew 
condemnation worldwide including from the UN secretary-general and the pope.

       Biden and Netanyahu were also expected to discuss Israel's plans to send 
ground forces into Gaza's densely crowded southern city of Rafah, and Israel's 
wider conflict with Iran and its allies after it was blamed for a deadly strike 
on the Iranian consulate building in Damascus.

       The US president has supported Israel in the almost six-month-old war 
sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack and kept up military supplies to its ally.

       But, amid rising domestic anger at the war in a US election year, his 
administration has also voiced frustration with Israel's right-wing premier 
over the conduct of the war and the suffering of Gazans.

       Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin too expressed "outrage" at the aid workers' 
killings -- which Israel has admitted to -- in a phone call with his Israeli 
counterpart Yoav Gallant.

       Austin stressed the need to protect aid workers and civilians and for "a 
rapid increase of aid" into Gaza, "particularly to communities in northern Gaza 
that are at risk of famine," the Pentagon said.

       
       - 'Concern' over Rafah plan -
       
       Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas, including in Rafah, and bring home 
the hostages, while pledging to move the more than one million civilians in the 
city out of harm's way first.

       Austin said the aid charity "tragedy reinforced the expressed concern over 
a potential Israeli military operation in Rafah, specifically focusing on the 
need to ensure the evacuation of Palestinian civilians and the flow of 
humanitarian aid".

       The Israeli army said Gallant and Austin had discussed "plans to expand 
operations to address Hamas's remaining battalions and military capabilities".

       It said the two had also "discussed the threat posed by Iran and its proxy 
activities", after Israel was blamed for the Damascus strike Monday that killed 
seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.

       Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed in a social media 
message that "with God's help we will make the Zionists repent of their crime 
of aggression against the Iranian consulate in Damascus".

       The Israeli military said that, after a "situational assessment, it was 
decided to increase manpower and draft reserve soldiers".

       The army also said "leave will be temporarily paused for all combat units", 
and media reported that more reservists were being called up "against the 
background of the visible threats from Iran".

       As Netanyahu has fought the war, he has faced intense domestic pressure 
from the families and supporters of the hostages still held in Gaza, and from a 
resurgent anti-government protest movement.

       A street protest in Tel Aviv to highlight the hostage crisis featured signs 
that warned "they are out of time", and a gagged man whose hands were tied with 
wire. 
       War cabinet member Benny Gantz, a centrist political rival of Netanyahu, 
has demanded that a snap election be held in September, a call rejected by the 
premier's right-wing Likud party.

       The bloodiest ever Gaza war began with Hamas's October 7 attack, which 
resulted in the deaths of about 1,170 people in Israel, mostly civilians, 
according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

       Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 33,037 people, mostly 
women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

       Palestinian militants also took more than 250 hostages on October 7, and 
130 remain in Gaza, including 34 who the army says are dead.

       Talks for a ceasefire and hostage release deal have stalled, with both 
sides blaming each other.

       An informed source within Hamas told AFP that "there is nothing new in the 
latest negotiating round, and the occupation (Israel) continues to be stubborn, 
procrastinate and disrupt any ceasefire agreement".

       Amid the heightened tensions, Israeli security services said they had 
foiled a plot to kill the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, 
who heads the Jewish Power party, and to strike other targets.
       
       - 'Food for our families' -
       
       In war-torn Gaza, where vast areas have been reduced to rubble, 2.4 million 
Palestinians have struggled on under bombardment while enduring dire shortages 
of food, water, fuel and other basic supplies.

       The charity Oxfam said that people in northern Gaza have been forced to 
survive on an average of 245 calories a day -- less than a can of beans, and a 
fraction of the recommended average daily 2,100 calorie intake per person.

       In Gaza City, Palestinians spent the night near an aid delivery spot, 
hoping to secure a bag of flour.

       "We sleep on the streets, in the cold, on the sand, enduring hardship to 
secure food for our families, especially our young children," one man told AFP. 
"I don't know what else to do or how our lives have come to this."

       WCK, which has called Monday's Israeli strikes "targeted", suspended its 
Gaza operations and sent ships laden with undelivered supplies back to Cyprus.

       The International Committee of the Red Cross warned that "humanitarian aid 
organisations are unable to carry out their work safely".