Biden, Netanyahu to hold call after World Central Kitchen deaths

President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will speak tomorrow in the wake of the Israeli air strike that killed seven Aid workers with World Central Kitchen in Gaza president is facing fresh criticism for his support for Israel in the aftermath of the deadly attack a meeting held Tuesday with Arab and Muslim leaders and activists was meant to be private and originally an ifar dinner to break the Ramadan fast but participants told the White House they didn't feel comfortable h

aving such a meal while Gaza is on the brink of famine and at least one particip an showed up and ended up walking out Dr the ahmmad an Emergency Physician from Chicago who traveled to Gaza earlier this year says he delivered a note to the president from an 8-year-old orphan then left the meeting we'll hear more from the doctor in a moment but here's what White House Press Secretary Karen Johan Pierre had to say about all of this earlier today and so we understand what's how this community is fe

eling it is deeply painful moment for many in the Arab and Muslim communities uh the President also expressed his commitment to continue working to secure an immediate ceasefire as part of a deal to free the hostages and significantly increased humanitarian Aid CBS News Chief Foreign Affairs correspondent and moderator of Face the Nation Margaret Brennan spoke with Dr Amad earlier today and has more Margaret good to see you Good To Be With You Ed and you know the White House has recently changed

their rhetoric to try to express more empathy for the loss U of so many civilians in Gaza and admitted they made a mistake not doing so earlier on a mistake that you see playing out in this public manner with the anger that was displayed with this doctor doctor Ahmed is an ER physician in the south side of Chicago he says he's used to stab wounds he's used to bullet wounds he was not at all prepared for what he saw when he went to volunteer in Gaza back in January he intends to go back he worke

d at a hospital there he said the majority of those he treated were women and children um many of whom died from shrapnel and the children often just from the impact of a blast from a bomb falling and their home exploding he did walk out from that meeting and I asked him why he went in the first place take a listen President Biden walks in says very few words says something to the effect of we know you guys have been working hard this is going to be a listening session we know a little bit about

what's taking place and then he pointed at me and asked me to start and that's when I just kind of communicated that message about ra about the concerns that I had having been inun and watching the hospital that I was in fall under siege and become defunct and all of the massive amount of people that migrated to Rafa and we Sheltering there now and that there's no way there's no alternative there is no safe way to do this it would be an absolute Massacre if there's an invasion into Rafa why wal

k out of that meeting with the president why not make your case and sit in front of him if as you say he has not heard from eyewitnesses before I wasn't sure that I was going to walk out of the this meeting unless it felt like it was the right thing to do and when the president really didn't even mention Gaza or Palestine in his first initial comments to me uh I felt that I needed to get out and I needed to at least Express the hurt and the pain that the entire palestinian-american Community is

feeling so Ed this was an attempt to try to change policy but really to get the US to put some uh pressure on the Israeli military and Israeli government not to go in as you heard in a forceful way with a ground assault Ina but to adopt this uh more direct and targeted approach to take out Hamas in the South but as you heard there uh a lot of frustration the vice president who's also in that meeting has talked to members of the community and held listening sessions uh remotely sometimes in the p

ast the president was there for the first time as you all know there was a political cost aside from the very real death toll and pain the political cost they are seeing at The Ballot Box and we talked about that and whether that would matter uh to the doctor himself take a listen will you go and will you vote and will you be able on an issue of conscience for yourself will that affect how you how you end up at The Ballot Box and which lever you pull yeah I mean Margaret to be honest with you it

's affecting how I feel about the next couple of days I mean I'm very it's changed everything with respect to our lives Palestinian Americans will tell you our lives are upside down we don't even know what we're going to do for the celebration for the end of month of Ramadan we don't know how what next week is going to look like we're all worried about what's happening in Gaza and so because you know people yeah we know people absolutely and you know there has been intense following of this of w

hat's going on we know the intimate details of people who are suffering in Gaza we know their names we know the family members that have been lost we know about the kids that haven't been in school for 6 months and so for us it affects everything in our lives and it's going to affect how we vote it's going to affect how we feel about the political engagement that in this country and just to put a fine point on that Ed it's not just in this country social media has changed how people are experien

cing this war and that is a problem for us allies around Israel as well who see a rising amount of anti-American sentiment because of the US Military Support for what is happening right and we heard so much of that Despair and hopelessness in the leader to the Michigan primary for example and around Dearborn we've we've heard it throughout this and in Wisconsin recently exactly so to hear the do say it again it's consistent with all the concern that so many Palestinian Americans Arab Americans M

uslim Americans have while we have you there was some news out of Israel today regarding the Netanyahu government Benny gance who's one of the members of that uh cabinet that's holding the Israeli government together now suggesting there should be early elections in September what does that do to the coalition government does it mean the end is near for Netanyahu well it's certainly not a vote of confidence in the prime minister's choices from someone who is uh esteemed within is Israel Benny ga

nce is more of a Centrist Netanyahu has put together the most right-wing Coalition in Israel's history he's also his longest serving prime minister he is a Survivor politically Benny gance doing this in public Chuck Schumer the Democratic leader came out saying this is uh something basically that he also was calling for this would move elections from 2026 when they're scheduled up to September there are already larg scale protests against the Netanyahu government and in fact there were before Oc

tober 7th because of some of the policy choices he Wasing to change his own Judicial System he's under investigation for corruption and because of some of the right-wing policies But to answer your question even if Gans quit tomorrow it wouldn't collapse the government it's part of this five person cabinet put together for the war right it is the Coalition in this parliamentary system if Netanyahu were to lose some of those right-wing members Ben gav smotri the guys you hear Joe Biden tick off b

y name and say he doesn't like what they are doing that might cause a problem and of the US officials worry that there is an incentive for the war to be extended in order for uh the political career of Benjamin Netanyahu to survive Senator Chris Van Holland said as much on Face the Nation recently yeah so more to come on that uh in the meantime regarding the attack on world Central kitchen worker Chef Jose Andre speaking out today to our colleagues at Reuters uh now raising doubts that it was an

unintentional attack let's take a listen to part of what he had to say to Reuters humanitarians and civilian should never be paying the consequences of War this is a basic principle of humanity at the at the time this looks like it's not a war against terrorism anymore seems this is a war against humanity itself you cannot be destroying every building you cannot be destroying every hospital every school you cannot be targeting humanitarian you cannot be targeting children you cannot be fting th

e basis of what Humanity should be standing for and in an oped for the New York Times Andre wrote Israel is better than the way this war is being waged it is better than blocking food and medicine to civilians it is better than killing Aid workers who had coordinated their movements with the Israel Defense Forces in the remaining moments we have what is this due to ongoing humanitarian relief work or the attempts to get humanitarian relief into Gaza is going to have a chilling effect period uh t

he seven lives that were lost here many of them were European one of them was American and this is an organization run by a celebrity that's why we're talking about it today Ed but nearly 200 humanitarian Aid workers working for the UN have been killed since October 97 journalists have been killed according to committee to protect journalists we don't know all their names but what we do know from us officials like David saterfield the envoy that President Biden appointed is that these this targe

ting um of un convoys and sometimes the police escorting them has been an issue those police work for the government since 2007 the government's been Hamas and so Israel's definition of what can be a legitimate Target or not may not match with the United States the bottom line is the distribution is the biggest problem and right now having someone inside to distribute it it there's no clear answer on who can do it that's why these airdrops and these Desperate Measures are being uh adopted the ot

her alternative would be to use the existing infrastructure and that is the UN and the United States Congress just defunded it right and it's going to make the attempts to build that temporary barge and and get relief in starting in May even that more difficult you get it to the shore who distributes it right exactly great to have your perspective and thank you for talking to the doctor and bringing it to us thanks Margaret Brennan thank you and of course you can see Margaret on Face the Nation

this Sunday right here on CBS News