US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he would not supply offensive weapons that Israel could use to launch an all-out attack on Rafah, Hamas’s last major stronghold in Gaza, out of concern for the well-being of more than 1 million civilians. refugees. there.
Biden, in an interview with CNN, said the United States was still committed to defending Israel and would provide Iron Dome rocket interceptors and other defensive weapons, but that if Israel enters Rafah, “we are not going to supply the weapons or artillery shells. used, that have been used.”
“I made it clear that if they go to Rafah (they haven’t gone to Rafah yet), if they go to Rafah, I will not provide them with the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, “That addresses that problem,” Biden said.
The interview marked Biden’s harshest public comments yet on the possible Israeli military operation and followed his decision to suspend a shipment of 2,000-pound heavy bombs to Israel last week over concerns that the US ally would was moving closer to an attack on Rafah, despite public opinion and private warnings from his administration.
Biden also said the 2,000-pound bombs have been used to kill Palestinian civilians, his strongest public acknowledgment yet of the U.S. role in the seven-month conflict between Israel and Hamas.
“Civilians have died in Gaza as a result of those bombs and other ways they reach population centers,” he said in the interview.
Earlier Wednesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a Senate committee that the Biden administration had halted the shipment of heavy bombs over concerns about civilian security in a potential Rafah offensive. He added that the administration was also reviewing some “short-term security assistance shipments” to Israel.
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Austin was the first senior Biden administration official to publicly explain the pause, which was first reported last week.
“We have been very clear … from the beginning that Israel should not launch a major attack on Rafah without taking into account and protecting civilians in that battle space,” Austin said at the Senate hearing.
“And again, while we assess the situation, we have stopped a shipment of high payload munitions,” he said. “We have not made a final decision on how to proceed with that shipment.”
The change also comes as the Biden administration is due to issue a formal verdict, the first of its kind, this week on whether airstrikes in Gaza and restrictions on aid deliveries have violated U.S. and international humanitarian law. A decision against Israel would further increase pressure on Biden to stem the flow of weapons and money to Israel’s military.
Historically, the United States has provided enormous amounts of military aid to Israel. This has only accelerated following the Hamas attack on October 1. 7 that killed about 1,200 people in Israel and led to about 250 being captured by militants.
Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas has led to a seven-month military campaign that has so far killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said.
Austin said at the Senate hearing that Israel had to be more precise and that the type of weapons used in a densely populated area was important.
A “small diameter bomb, which is a precision weapon, is very useful in a dense, built-up environment…but maybe not so much a 2,000-pound bomb that could create a lot of collateral damage,” Austin said.
Israeli troops on Tuesday took control of the vital Rafah border crossing in Gaza in what the White House described as a limited operation that fell short of the full Israeli invasion of the city that Biden has repeatedly warned against on humanitarian grounds, the last time in a statement on Monday. call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel has ordered the evacuation of 100,000 Palestinians from the city. Israeli forces also carried out what they describe as “targeted strikes” in the eastern part of Rafah and captured the Rafah crossing, a critical conduit for the flow of humanitarian aid along the Gaza-Egypt border.
—With additional files from Reuters
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