US says Rafah offensive would jeopardize cease-fire talks as Biden threatens to halt more Israel aid
WASHINGTON — The United States warned on Thursday that Israel will hand Hamas a strategic victory if it follows through with plans for an all-out attack on Rafah, the militants’ last major stronghold in Gaza.
The warning was backed by a new threat from President Joe Biden: He says he will suspend more offensive military aid to Israel if it continues the operation in a city sheltering more than 1 million civilians.
Biden last week suspended a shipment of large bombs to Israel over concerns that the weapons are of the type that have caused significant civilian casualties in Gaza and would almost certainly cause even more damage if Israel carries out a major offensive in Rafah.
On Wednesday, he raised the possibility of blocking future shipments of bomb guidance kits and artillery to Israel, hoping the threat would deter Israel from conducting an operation in the city.
The statements are part of a last-ditch effort for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right government to reconsider their public commitments to invade the city in an effort to root out Hamas. The US believes that such a move would result in significant civilian casualties and worsen the already serious humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The US is taking its sharpest steps yet to influence its ally’s decision-making in the ongoing war against the militant group sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7. About 1,200 people in Israel were killed and about 250 were captured.
“We believe that any type of major ground operation in Rafah would actually strengthen Hamas’s hands at the negotiating table, not Israel’s,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Thursday. He said more civilian deaths in Rafah as a result of an Israeli offensive would give more ammunition to Hamas’s “distorted narrative” about Israel.
Talks in Cairo aimed at brokering a six-week ceasefire to allow the release of some hostages and a wave of food and aid to civilians in Gaza are continuing, Kirby added. But CIA Director Bill Burns and other delegations at the talks left Egypt on Thursday without an agreement.
Kirby said it was too early to know whether the delay in aid had changed the Israeli calculus, but that the US continued to advise Israel on how to defeat Hamas through more surgical operations.
“We believe that they have put enormous pressure on Hamas and that there are better ways to go after the rest of Hamas in Rafah than a major ground operation,” he added.
Biden emphasized in an interview with CNN on Wednesday that despite the arms revolt, the US was still committed to Israel’s defense and would provide Iron Dome missile interceptors and other defensive weapons.
He acknowledged that “civilians have been killed in Gaza” by the kind of heavy bombs the US has supplied. It was his first confirmation of what government critics were loudly protesting, even as he still took no responsibility. His threat to hold back artillery shells built on earlier revelations that the US was interrupting a shipment of heavy bombs.
Biden said Israel’s actions around Rafah have “not yet” crossed his red lines, but he reiterated that Israel must do much more to protect the lives of civilians in Gaza. The Hamas-led Health Ministry estimates the death toll at more than 34,000, although it does not distinguish between militants and civilians.
Israeli military spokesman Vice Admiral Daniel Hagari said that despite the US pause, “we have what we need” to continue the mission. His comments came after Netanyahu rejected Biden’s threats, saying in a statement: “If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone.”
The US has historically provided enormous amounts of military aid to Israel. The shipment that was interrupted would consist of 1,800 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs and 1,700 500-pound (225-kilogram) bombs, according to a senior U.S. government official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issues . matter. The US focus was on the larger explosives and how they could be used in a dense urban area.
“I have made it clear that if they enter Rafah – they have not been to Rafah yet – if they enter Rafah, I will not provide the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities. that address that problem,” Biden said.
“We are not running away from Israel’s security,” the Democratic president continued. “We are not running away from Israel’s ability to wage war in those areas.”
U.S. officials declined to comment for days on the halted transfer. News of this came as Biden on Tuesday described US support for Israel as “rock solid, even when we disagree.”
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 TV News that the decision to pause shipments was “a very disappointing decision, even frustrating.” He suggested the move stemmed from political pressure on Biden from Congress. , the protests on the American campus and the upcoming elections.
The decision also prompted a sharp rebuke from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who said they only learned about the delay through press reports. despite assurances from the Biden administration that no such breaks were allowed. in the works. Republicans called on Biden in a letter to quickly end the blockade, saying it “risks emboldening Israel’s enemies,” and to brief lawmakers on the nature of the policy reviews.
Biden has faced pressure from some on the left and condemnation from critics on the right who say Biden has moderated his support for a vital Middle Eastern ally.
“The American people overwhelmingly support Israel,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican to introduce a resolution condemning Biden’s decision. “And they also believe that Israel must do what is necessary, and if that means invading Rafah to eradicate the Hamas threat, then that is necessary for their survival.”
Former President Donald Trump, who entered a New York courthouse for his criminal trial on hush money payments, also criticized Biden, saying Thursday that “What Biden is doing regarding Israel is shameful.” The presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee added: “If a Jew voted for Joe Biden, they should be ashamed of themselves. He has completely failed Israel.”
Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a Biden ally, said in a statement that the pause on big bombs should be a “first step.”
“Our influence is clear,” Sanders said. “Over the years, the United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel. We can no longer be complicit in Netanyahu’s horrific war against the Palestinian people.”
Israeli forces took control of Gaza’s crucial Rafah border crossing on Tuesday in what the White House described as a limited operation that stopped short of the full Israeli invasion of the city that Biden has repeatedly warned about.
Israel has ordered the evacuation of 100,000 Palestinians from the city. Israeli forces have also carried out what they described as “targeted attacks” on the eastern part of Rafah and captured the Rafah crossing, a crucial conduit for the flow of humanitarian aid along the Gaza-Egypt border.
The State Department is separately considering whether to approve continued transfers of Joint Direct Attack Munition kits, which place precision guidance systems on bombs, to Israel, but the review did not include any upcoming shipments.
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Associated Press writers Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Lolita C. Baldor and Matthew Lee contributed to this report.