WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden (pix) criticised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the war on Gaza, calling his approach a “mistake.”

“I think what he’s doing is a mistake. I don’t agree with his approach,” Biden told the US-based Spanish language TV network Univision in an interview on Tuesday, Anadolu Agency reported.

“What I’m calling for is for the Israelis to just call for a cease-fire, allow for the next six, eight weeks total access to all food and medicine going into the country,” he said. “There’s no excuse to not provide for the medical and the food needs of those people. It should be done now.”

According to Anadolu, Biden’s remarks came after he said in a statement last week that he is “outraged” and “heartbroken” over an Israeli airstrike in Gaza that killed seven people working for the US-based food charity World Central Kitchen (WCK), highlighting that Israel “has not done enough to protect aid workers”.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since Oct 7, killing more than 33,300 Palestinians and injuring nearly 76,000 others amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

The regime is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which in January issued an interim ruling that ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.