U.S. struggles for leverage in escalating Israeli-Palestinian clash Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr was holding talks in Israel on Sunday, and Mr. Biden reportedly has spoken at least twice with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the past week. But a move by the Pentagon last week to evacuate a 120-person Defense Department delegation that has been visiting Israel when the fighting broke out was seen by some as a sign of the lack of American leverage in the crisis and now others are moving to fill the vacuum. At the request of Saudi Arabia, foreign ministers of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation held an emergency virtual summit Sunday calling for an end to Israeli strikes and military activity in the Gaza Strip. At the virtual meeting, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki denounced Israel as an “apartheid state” that was practicing “crimes and brutality against our people in Gaza.”