Bibi turns heel after furious with Biden for not vetoing Gaza ceasefire: White House confirms Netanyahu will send Israeli delegation to Washington for Rafah talks, days after scrapping meeting

In a reversal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to send two top Israeli officials to Washington as early as next week for talks on a possible invasion of Rafah.

Netanyahu called off the planned visit after the US authorized a Gaza ceasefire resolution at the United Nations, a sign of rising tensions between Tel Aviv and President Joe Biden’s government.

“The prime minister’s office has agreed, has agreed, to reschedule the meeting dedicated to Rafah,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at Wednesday’s news conference.

“We are now working with them to find a suitable date that is clearly mutually convenient, but his office has agreed to reschedule the meeting, which would be dedicated to Rafah, which is a good thing.”

The meeting could take place as soon as next week, but the White House said it could not yet confirm a date. Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi are among the officials likely to attend.

“We remain hopeful that we can break an agreement to secure the release of hostages and achieve a temporary ceasefire. This is something we have been asking for for a while,” Jean-Pierre said.

When Netanyahu originally canceled the meeting, the White House raised Rafah with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who was already in Washington. Gallant met with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Wills and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

“I think the arrival of the Minister of Defense from Israel was very important to have those important and critical conversations for two days,” Jean-Pierre said.

After the US chose to abstain from voting – rather than vetoing – a UN resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, Netanyahu accused Washington DC of ‘backing away’ with its vote draw’ from a ‘principled position’.

US officials said the US abstained because the resolution did not condemn Hamas. By abstaining rather than vetoing, the US allowed the resolution to pass.

In the aftermath, the White House said it was “baffled” as to why Netanyahu had canceled the meeting.

“We are stunned by this,” White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday.

Kirby said the American vote “does not represent a change in our policy.”

“We have been very consistent in our support for a ceasefire as part of a hostage agreement,” he said. “But because the final text does not contain key words that we believe are essential, such as condemning Hamas, we could not support it.”

“It seems like the Prime Minister’s Office is choosing to create a perception of daylight here when it doesn’t need to be,” Kirby noted.

After the U.N. vote, Netanyahu labeled America’s decision as “a retreat from the consistent American position since the beginning of the war,” and said the U.S. abstention “damages both the war effort and efforts to free the hostages.” ‘

He noted that he did not send an Israeli delegation to Washington to hold high-level talks with US officials on a planned operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah – a rebuke to President Joe Biden, who had called for the meetings asked.

The Israeli prime minister later said his decision to cancel the meeting was intended to convey a message to Hamas that international pressure against Israel will not push the country to end the war without concessions from the militant group, a apparent attempt to smooth over the clash between the militant groups. allies.

Now the meeting has started again. Jean-Pierre said it was ‘urgent’ to set a date. The Biden administration has warned Israel against a ground invasion of Rafah, which is overflowing with refugees. Israel has so far rejected American calls to call off the planned operation.

The UN resolution is non-binding and the global governing body has no way to enforce it.

The 15-member United Nations Security Council approved the ceasefire resolution 14-0 after the US decided not to use its veto over the measure, which also demanded the release of all hostages captured during the surprise attack by Hamas on October 7 in southern Israel. .

After the vote, the room erupted in loud applause.

The US has vetoed Security Council ceasefire resolutions largely due to its inability to directly link them to the release of hostages, its inability to condemn Hamas’ attacks and the fragility of the ongoing negotiations .

US officials have argued that the ceasefire and the release of hostages are linked, while Russia, China and many other council members have supported unconditional calls for a ceasefire.

The US decision to abstain comes at a time of rising tensions between President Joe Biden’s administration and Netanyahu over Israel’s prosecution of the war, the high number of civilian casualties and the limited amounts of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza.

The two countries have also clashed over Netanyahu’s rejection of a Palestinian state, Jewish settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and settlement expansion there.

Moreover, the well-known antagonism between Netanyahu and Biden – dating back to Biden’s tenure as vice president – ​​deepened after Biden questioned Israel’s strategy in the fight against Hamas.

Then Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Biden ally, suggested Netanyahu was not operating in Israel’s best interests and called on Israel to hold new elections. Biden signaled his approval of Schumer’s comments, prompting a rebuke from Netanyahu.

During her U.S. visit, the Israeli delegation was expected to present White House officials with its plans for a possible ground invasion of Rafah, a city on the Egyptian border in southern Gaza where more than 1 million Palestinian civilians have sought refuge from the war.

More than 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in the fighting, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Gaza is also facing a serious humanitarian emergency, with a report from an international authority on hunger warning on March 18 that there is “a threat of famine” in northern Gaza and that escalation of the war could kill half of the could push 2.3 million people in the area to the brink of destruction. hungry.