The White House hurriedly put off President Joe Biden’s first in-person meeting with Israel’s new prime minister Thursday and canceled a video conference with governors on incoming Afghan refugees after more than a dozen people were killed in explosions outside the airport in the Afghan capital, where throngs of people are scrambling to get to planes and evacuate.

Biden was to host Naftali Bennett, Israel’s new prime minister, who is on his first visit to the U.S. since taking office. Biden also had planned to meet virtually with a bipartisan group of governors who have said they want to help resettle Afghan refugees fleeing their now Taliban-ruled country.

But deadly developments in the Afghan capital of Kabul forced the White House to tear up the president’s schedule, as he monitored the airport situation that was prompted by the Tuesday deadline he set for removing American citizens and troops from Afghanistan.

Biden’s meetings with Bennett were delayed indefinitely, while the governors’ meeting was canceled, the White House said. A regular briefing by government health and medical experts, scheduled for Thursday, also was postponed.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)