(Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to speak with Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday and focus on a new demand by the Israeli leader that Israel keep forces deployed along a land corridor between Egypt and Gaza, Axios reported, citing an unnamed source.
Biden wants Netanyahu to soften Israel’s position on the issue, Axios reported.
In talks to halt fighting in the 10-month-old war, Hamas is seeking a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, including the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow 14.5-km-long (nine-mile) stretch of land along the coastal enclave’s southern border with Egypt.
Israel wants to retain control of the corridor, which it captured in late May, after destroying dozens of tunnels beneath it that it says had served to smuggle in weapons to Gaza’s militant groups.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren and Rami Ayyub)
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