- Mike Wendling and Tom Bateman of Washington
- bbc news
image source, Getty Images
President Joe Biden has warned Israel that he will cut off some weapons supplies if the US launches a large-scale ground operation in the Gaza city of Rafah.
“If they go into Rafah, I will not supply them with the weapons that have historically been used to deal with Rafah,” he said in an interview with CNN.
He added: “We will continue to ensure Israel’s security.”
Despite the United States’ determined and vocal opposition, Israel appears poised to launch a major invasion of Rafah.
The crowded area of southern Gaza is Hamas’ last major stronghold in the region. U.S. officials have warned that operations in the city, which has a rapidly growing population of refugees from other parts of the Gaza Strip, could result in widespread civilian casualties.
“We’re not going to supply arms or shells,” Biden said in an interview aired Wednesday.
He said the US does not define the current situation in Rafah as a ground operation. “They didn’t go into populated areas. What they did was right at the border,” he said.
“However, I have made it clear that [Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu] And the War Cabinet will not have our support if they actually advance into these populated areas. ”
Biden acknowledged that Israel used U.S. weapons to kill civilians in the Gaza Strip.
Asked whether Israel had crossed a “red line”, the US president answered “not yet.”
The comments represent the president’s strongest warning yet against a possible ground invasion of Rafah and mark the first time the president has said the United States may halt shipments of American weapons to Israel. Become.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations said Israel was “very disappointed” in Biden’s intervention.
“This is a very unfortunate statement, difficult to hear from a president who we have been grateful to since the beginning of the war,” Gilad Erdan told Israeli public broadcaster Kan Radio.
The United States has already postponed shipping thousands of bombs to Israel and said it is considering future shipments.
On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged during Senate testimony that shipments of bombs, some of the most destructive munitions in Western military arsenals, have been delayed.
The move is unlikely to have an immediate impact, as the arms the United States is holding are related to future deliveries. However, given Israel’s rate of bombing, it will likely have an impact on future airstrikes in the near future.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said the two countries would resolve their differences “behind closed doors.”
President Biden faces growing domestic pressure from some Democrats and some Americans to curb Israeli operations in Gaza as the civilian death toll rises and the humanitarian situation worsens. ing.
No new aid has been delivered to Gaza through the two southern gates since Israeli tanks entered southern Rafah this week and took control of the Palestinian side of the border with Egypt, U.S. officials said. confirmed.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the United States had provided “unprecedented” security assistance since the war began, adding that the dispute between the allies had been resolved “indifferently behind closed doors.”
But a leading lawmaker from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Israeli Likud party told the BBC News Hour on Wednesday that he believed U.S. domestic political considerations were behind the decision to halt bomb shipments.
Boaz Bismuth, a member of both the Israeli parliament and the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said he “absolutely disagrees that the American election has nothing to do with it.”
Since the war began between Israel and Hamas in October last year, Rafah has been a key entry point for aid and the only exit for people who are able to evacuate.
The Israeli military on Monday ordered tens of thousands of civilians to begin evacuating the eastern city of Rafah ahead of what it described as a “limited” operation aimed at eliminating Hamas fighters and dismantling infrastructure.
Meanwhile, efforts toward a ceasefire continue, alongside the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners of war. In Cairo, Israeli and Hamas delegations resumed negotiations through an intermediary.
A US official said talks with Israel were “ongoing but have not fully addressed our concerns” and that the US was considering arms transfers to Israel starting in April.
According to Israeli counts, after Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, Israel launched an operation to annihilate Hamas, during which approximately 1,200 people were killed and 252 were taken hostage.
More than 34,780 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-controlled region’s health ministry.
In a deal reached in November, Hamas released 105 hostages and about 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons in exchange for a week-long ceasefire. Israel announced that 128 hostages were missing, 36 of whom were presumed dead.
