The president said that Israel’s leader “must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost,” even as he said the country had a right to pursue Hamas in Gaza.
U.S. officials have conceded it will take weeks to make maritime aid delivery practical but say it will eventually enable them to significantly increase the amount of aid to Gaza.
If confirmed, the deaths would underscore the difficulty of getting food to people facing severe hunger in the enclave. The U.S. said it had conducted another airdrop on Friday, but that all of that aid had landed on the ground safely.
Officials said President Biden was expected to announce in his State of the Union on Thursday that the U.S. military would construct a floating pier off the Gaza Strip to let ships deliver tons of food and other aid.
Michael Spavor, a Canadian businessman, was arrested by China in what his lawyers said was an act of retaliation for Canada’s detention of a Chinese tech giant executive.