Some of Israel’s actions in its war against Hamas, like cutting off food and water for Gaza, could “harden Palestinian attitudes for generations” and weaken international support for Israel, former U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday.

In rare comments on an active foreign policy crisis, Obama said any Israeli military strategy that ignores the human costs of the war “could ultimately backfire.”

“The Israeli government’s decision to cut off food, water and electricity to a captive civilian population (in Gaza) threatens not only to worsen a growing humanitarian crisis; it could further harden Palestinian attitudes for generations, erode global support for Israel, play into the hands of Israel’s enemies, and undermine long-term efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region,” Obama said.

Israel has heavily bombarded Gaza with air strikes since Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on Israel left over 1,400 people dead. Israel’s air strikes have killed more than 5,000 Palestinians, Gaza officials say.

Obama condemned Hamas’ attack and reiterated his support for Israel’s right to defend itself, while cautioning about risks to civilians in such wars.

It was not clear whether Obama had coordinated his statement with U.S. President Joe Biden, who served as his vice president for eight years.

During his presidency, Obama often backed Israel’s right to self-defense at the start of conflicts with Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza, but quickly called for Israeli restraint once Palestinian casualties mounted from airstrikes.

Gaza, a 45 km-long (25-mile) strip of land that is home to 2.3 million people, has been ruled politically since 2007 by Hamas, an Iran-backed Islamist group, but faces a blockade from Israel.

The Obama administration sought, but ultimately failed to broker, a peace deal in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Since taking office in early 2021, Biden has not tried to resume long-stalled talks, saying that leaders on both sides were too intransigent and the climate was not right.

Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a testy relationship when Obama was in office, including when Obama’s administration was negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran.

Biden, as Obama’s vice president, often acted as a mediator between the two men.

In his statement on Monday, Obama acknowledged that the U.S. had itself “fallen short of our higher values when engaged in war,” especially after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Billionaire Elon Musk has been in the news ever since his takeover of Twitter, which was later changed to X. The Founder of SpaceX and Tesla posts on the microblogging platform regularly, often intriguing users across the globe. Recently, the billionaire said that he would pay Wikipedia $1 billion if they changed their name. “I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia,” he said, adding that he would do so “in the interests of accuracy.”

When a user urged Wikipedia to go ahead with the name change, Mr Musk set another condition. “@Wikipedia, Do it! You can always change it back after you collect,” the user said. To which, the billionaire replied, “One year minimum. I mean, I’m a not fool lol.”

In another post, he shared a screenshot of Wikipedia’s homepage which mentioned “Wikipedia is not for sale” and “a personal appeal from Jimmy Wales”. Mr Musk added, “Have you ever wondered why the Wikimedia Foundation wants so much money? It certainly isn’t needed to operate Wikipedia. You can literally fit a copy of the entire text on your phone! So, what’s the money for? Inquiring minds want to know …”

(Please add that to the ?? on my wiki page)

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 22, 2023

Mr Musk, in a follow-up post, also asked if a cow and a poop emoji could be added to his Wikipedia page. 

Since being shared, his post has amassed 9.9 million views and over a lakh likes. 

“They’re always asking for donations, so be careful. They might come to collect,” said a user.

“Sounds like that cage match challenge,” commented a person.

A third person commented, “Buy it and put AI in charge of updating it autonomously.”

“Typical rich guy… Only willing to donate if the institution names itself after him!” remarked a user.

Another person added, “Looking at the replies I just can’t imagine these people are waking the same earth as me lmao.”

In May this year, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales took a dig at Mr Musk for censoring critics of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, a day before the country’s highly contested presidential election. In a post, Mr Wales called out the billionaire for not supporting free speech when he caved to Turkey’s demands to restrict content. In his post, Mr Wales mentioned that when he faced a similar situation, Wikipedia pushed back.

“Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias? The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?” Mr Musk said. 

In response to Musk’s tweet, he said, “What Wikipedia did: we stood strong for our principles and fought to the Supreme Court of Turkey and won. This is what it means to treat freedom of expression as a principle rather than a slogan.”

Wikipedia was blocked in Turkey for more than two years when the telecommunications watchdog cited a law allowing it to ban access to sites deemed obscene or a threat to national security.

US President Joe Biden said on Monday that any discussions about a Gaza ceasefire could only take place if Hamas frees all hostages seized from Israel in its October 7 attack.

“We should have those hostages released and then we can talk,” Biden said at a White House event when asked if he would support a “hostages-for-ceasefire” deal.

Biden then apologized for having to leave the event to promote his economic program ahead of next year’s election, saying he had to go to the White House Situation Room for “another issue I have to deal with.”

His comments came shortly after Hamas said they had freed two more women hostages abducted from Israel.

American mother and daughter Judith and Natalie Raanan were freed on Friday.

Israel on Monday increased the number of confirmed hostages to 222 people seized when Hamas gunmen crossed the border and attacked kibbutz communities, towns and military bases in southern Israel.

Israeli officials say the Hamas militants killed 1,400 people in the nation’s worst-ever attack.

Israel hit back with a blistering bombing campaign which Gaza’s Hamas-run health authority says has now killed more than 5,000 people.

Biden also touched on a call he had with Pope Francis on Sunday about the Israel-Hamas conflict and the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

“The pope and I are on the same page, he was very very, very interested in what we were doing,” Biden said.

Biden said he had “laid out to him what the game plan was” regarding US support for Israel.

“The pope was across the board supportive,” he added.