US President Joe Biden said on Monday he had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to send a team to Washington to discuss how to avoid an all-out assault in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, AFP reports.

The move is one of the clearest attempts yet by Biden to rein in the key US ally, amid fears that the already huge death toll and humanitarian crisis in Gaza could be drastically worsened by a full attack on Rafah.

The White House said separately that Israel had killed one of Hamas’s top commanders in a strike in Gaza.

“I asked the Prime Minister to send a team to Washington to discuss ways to target Hamas without a major ground operation in Rafah,” Biden said on X after speaking to Netanyahu for the first time in more than a month.