Biden urged Netanyahu to protect civilians in Rafah, White House says

WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) -- U.S. President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday that Israel should not launch a military operation in Rafah without a credible plan to ensure the safety of the roughly 1 million people sheltering there, the White House said.

Biden and Netanyahu spoke for about 45 minutes, days after the U.S. leader said Israel's military response in the Gaza Strip had been "over the top" and expressed grave concern over the rising civilian death toll in the Palestinian enclave.

The call focused largely on ongoing efforts to secure the release of the remaining 132 hostages held by the Islamist Hamas group in Gaza, a senior administration official told reporters, noting that "real progress" had been made in recent weeks.

While there were still some "significant" gaps to close, the official said the deal was "pretty much there," adding that Biden had stressed the need to capitalize on that progress to "secure the release of all hostages as soon as possible."

Biden also emphasized his view that "a military operation in Rafah just really cannot proceed without a credible and implementable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for the more than 1 million people that are now sheltering there," the official said, adding that they simply had "nowhere to go."

Biden's blunt warnings against a military operation in Rafah, located in the southern part of Gaza on the border with Egypt, come amid warnings from aid agencies that say such an assault could lead to many more deaths, and concerns that it could derail the hostage release efforts.

Hamas-run Aqsa Television on Sunday quoted a senior Hamas leader as saying that any Israeli ground offensive in Rafah will "blow up" the hostage exchange