Israel-Gaza war: Trump accuses Joe Biden of siding with Hamas over US president’s warning to halt arms shipments

Speaking later to reporters outside the courtroom before entering his hush money trial in New York, Trump said that “What Biden is doing with respect to Israel is disgraceful.”

“He’s totally abandoned Israel and nobody can believe it,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who will challenge Biden in the November election, said.

Under increasing pressure from the left of his own party to limit arms shipments, Biden paused delivery last week of 1,800 907kg (2,000-pound) bombs and 1,700 225kg bombs.

His administration has also previously taken smaller steps to show displeasure with Israel, including imposing sanctions on extremist settlers and letting through a UN Security Council resolution that supported a ceasefire.

The Gaza war began with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel in response vowed to crush Hamas and free the captives. It began a military offensive that has killed at least 34,904 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.