Expect 'significant de-escalation' by day’s end: Biden to Netanyahu

President Joe Biden greatly increased the pressure on Israel to end the war with the Palestinians that has killed more than 200 people, telling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a telephone call Wednesday that he expected "significant de-escalation" by day's end.

Biden asked Netanyahu to move "toward the path to a cease-fire," according to a White House description of their conversation.

Biden's call came as political and international pressure mounts on him to intervene more forcefully to push an end to the hostilities. Biden, until Wednesday, had avoided pressing Israel more directly and publicly for a cease-fire, or conveyed that level of urgency for ending Israeli airstrikes targeting Hamas in the thickly populated Gaza Strip.

His administration had relied instead on what officials described as "quiet, intensive" diplomacy, including quashing a U.N. Security Council statement that would have addressed a cease-fire. The administration's handling opened a divide between Biden and Democratic lawmakers, dozens of whom have called for a cease-fire.