Benjamin Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping”, Joe Biden has said.

The American president also said Israel “cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead” as a “consequence” of pursuing Hamas fighters.

Inflicting mass civilian casualties is also “contrary to what Israel stands for”, he added. 

Washington has urged the Israeli prime minister not to begin a major offensive in the southern Gaza town of Rafah until a plan is in place for the mass evacuation of civilians.

More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are in the Rafah area. 

An IDF invasion there would be Mr Biden’s “red line”, he told MSNBC.

He immediately appeared to backtrack, however, saying he was “never going to leave Israel”.

“The defence of Israel is still critical,” he said. 

“So there’s no red line [in which] I’m going to cut off all weapons so they don’t have the Iron Dome [air defence system] to protect them.” 

He insisted, though, that Mr Netanyahu “must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken”.

And he reiterated his call for a six-week ceasefire to enable hostages to be released and aid to be delivered.