Biden, Netanyahu call to focus on efforts to free hostages, says source

US President Joe Biden will speak with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today in a call that is set to focus on efforts to free the 132 remaining hostages taken on October 7 and held by the Islamist terror group Hamas in Gaza, according to a source familiar with the plans.

The call will be the two leaders’ first conversation since Biden said Israel’s military response in Gaza has been “over the top.”

Biden, who is spending the weekend at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, is slated to speak with Netanyahu on Sunday morning US time, a White House official says.

Netanyahu earlier told the “Fox News Sunday” program that he has not talked with Biden since the comment on Thursday and did not know what the US leader meant by it. He said he believes America’s response to an attack like October 7 — when terrorists went on a killing spree, slaughtering 1,200 and taking 253 hostages — would have been at least as strong as Israel’s response has been.