Furious White House officials have reportedly canceled a meeting with Israeli officials to discuss Iran after Benjamin Netanyahu accused the US of withholding weapons and slowing his country’s advance in Gaza.
Netanyahu made his claims in a short video, escalating already heightened tension between his hardline government and President Joe Biden.
Although Biden has delayed the delivery of some heavy bombs over concerns about civilian casualties, officials have been at pains not to accuse Israel of crossing red lines in its attack on Rafah.
Netanyahu recorded the video on Tuesday describing how he told Biden’s foreign minister that Israel would get the job done faster if it had the right tools.
“It is unthinkable that the administration has withheld weapons and ammunition from Israel in recent months… Israel, America’s closest ally, is fighting for its life against Iran and our other common enemies,” he said.
Biden’s advisers were furious about the message, according to the news website Axios.
Two sources said US envoy Amos Hochstein met with the Israeli prime minister to convey their anger.
The White House then canceled the Thursday meeting with Israeli officials to underscore the point.
“This decision makes clear that there are consequences for pulling off such stunts,” a US official said.
A senior Israeli official said the message was clear. ‘The Americans are furious. Bibi’s video has caused a lot of damage,” the official said, using a nickname for the Israeli leader.
However, a White House official walked back the report, telling DailyMail.com that the next meeting of the Israel Strategic Consultative Group had yet to be scheduled, so “nothing has been canceled.”
“In the meantime, meetings will be held throughout the week with Israeli officials at expert and senior levels on a range of topics,” the official said.
“As we said in the briefing yesterday: we have no idea what the Prime Minister is talking about, but that is no reason to reschedule a meeting.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the White House said it was stunned by Netanyahu’s statement.
The Biden administration is facing mounting opposition among its own supporters over its support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza. In this image, Palestinian men walk through a narrow street past destroyed buildings in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip on June 11
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu recorded a short video on Tuesday describing how he told Biden’s foreign minister that Israel would get the job done faster if it had the right tools.
“We really don’t know what he’s talking about,” Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
“One shipment is paused, the rest are moving.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken was also asked about the issue on Tuesday and said the only pause was related to the heavy bombs from May.
“As you know, we continue to assess a shipment that President Biden mentioned regarding 2,000-pound bombs due to our concerns about their use in a densely populated area like Rafah,” he said at a ministry news conference of Foreign Affairs. .
‘That is still being investigated. But everything else moves as it normally would.”
Fighting has not stopped after eight months of war sparked by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.
A ball of fire and black smoke rises shortly after an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in the town of Bureij in the central Gaza Strip on June 3, 2024
Relatives and supporters of Israelis taken hostage by Palestinian militants in Gaza during the October 7 attacks demonstrate in the central city of Tel Aviv on June 8, 2024, calling for their release.
Biden is under pressure from his own supporters to rein in the Israeli offensive in Gaza
The US has provided crucial military and diplomatic support since the start of the war.
Two top Democrats in Congress have cleared the way for a $15 billion sale of F-15s to Israel, following a delay as they sought answers from the Biden administration over Israel’s current use of American weapons in the Gaza war.
Last week, a United Nations investigation concluded that Israel committed crimes against humanity during the war in Gaza, including that of ‘extermination’, while alleging that both Israeli and Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes.
The report by the Independent Commission of Inquiry – the United Nations’ first in-depth investigation into events during the war that broke out on October 7 – found that Israeli forces “carried out a widespread or systematic attack against the civilian population in Gaza.”