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President Joe Biden has appeared alongside King Abdullah of Jordan in the White House to appeal for Israel to hold off on mounting a full scale ground offensive in Rafah, until plans to protect civilians are put in place.

Mr Biden has said his administration is working night and day towards a hostage deal that would also involve a truce of at least six weeks.

But is Israel鈥檚 prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, listening? And does the US have the sway with Israel that they are traditionally thought to have had?

Dennis Ross, the former US Middle East Envoy, told Newsday what President Biden is trying to achieve and against what context:

"President Biden accepts the reality that you can't really produce demilitarization of Gaza if you don't deal with Rafah. When you have a very large number of people in a very small concentrated area even the most targeted surgical kinds of military strikes are going to produce civilian casualties... [so] if you don't come up with a serious evacuation plan that is married to the ability to significantly increase the humanitarian assistance, the price that will be paid by the Palestinian people will be - as the President has said - too high."

"Everyone in Israel knows someone who was kidnapped or killed so the country is going through post traumatic stress syndrome - so their ability to absorb what is happening to the Palestinians is quite limited. By the same token we look at the Palestinians who obviously have been traumatised by the realities in Gaza. When you have two societies that are experiencing trauma their capacity to relate to the other, to feel the pain of the other, to think about concessions to the other - is almost non-existent."

"I don't know... when it has been as grim as this."

(Pic: Palestinian children stand inside a destroyed apartment following an Israeli airstrike on the Rafah refugee camp; Credit: EPA)

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