Biden pauses shipment of bombs to Israel over Rafah
The Biden administration has paused the shipment of 3,500 bombs to Israel over concerns they could be used in a major military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
President Joe Biden has been grappling with a pledge to support Israel militarily no matter what amid concerns that the U.S. ally is not doing enough to protect civilian lives in Gaza.
Biden’s administration began a review of certain weapons transfers to Israel last month, a senior U.S. official said. The president then paused a shipment of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs last week, as Israel ramped up plans for a ground invasion of the city.
The pause came amid a push from
Democratic lawmakers to obtain fresh assurances the ally is not violating U.S. policy and international humanitarian law in Gaza, and on the heels of a bipartisan bill that Congress passed and the president signed authorizing more military aid to Israel.
The White House reiterated Tuesday that Biden’s support for Israel is ironclad. And the president has himself said there is no red line over which he would cut off all aid to Israel.
But with Israel drawing closer to making a decision on Rafah, the Biden administration says its concerns about humanitarian access have not been fully addressed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said an invasion of Rafah, overwhelmed by more than
1 million Palestinians who fled the violence elsewhere in the enclave, is crucial to crushing Hamas. The Israeli military said Wednesday it had uncovered Hamas infrastructure in several locations in eastern Rafah and its troops were conducting targeted raids.
Netanyahu has pledged to destroy Hamas since October, when the militant group led the assault on Israel that killed almost 1,200 people. Almost 35,000 Palestinians have died in the resulting Israeli attack Gaza, the enclave’s health ministry reports. Israel claims to have killed more than 12,000 militants.
Gaza health workers said Wednesday they uncovered at least 49 bodies in a mass grave at Al-Shifa hospital, according to a medical official and Hamas authorities. The Gaza City facility was raided in March by Israeli forces.
Hamas announced Monday that it had accepted a three-phase truce offer, but Israel said the proposal had been altered and rejected it. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that the White House believes Israeli and Hamas negotiators were in position to “close the gap” between their positions.
CIA Director Williams Burns is in Cairo representing the U.S. at cease-fire negotiations involving Qatar, Egypt and Israel, with Qatar serving as an intermediary for Hamas.
Kerem Shalom crossing reopened
Biden warned Netanyahu in an early April call that the U.S. could make policy changes if the country did not take concrete steps to address his administration’s humanitarian concerns.
In a briefing with reporters on Tuesday, John Kirby, the White House’s national security communications adviser, said “a lot more work” needs to be done for Israel to meet the Biden administration’s expectations.
“Clearly there’s still great humanitarian need and great risk for the people that are trying to get that assistance to to those in need,” he said.
But since that conversation, the Israelis have taken steps to open up additional crossings and the U.S. has observed a sustained increase in the number of aid trucks.
“And we had seen evidence that they were working harder to improve their deconfliction processes to restore some of the trust ... lost with humanitarian aid organizations on the ground,” he said.
“But I again want to stress it’s not enough. ... We need to see it sustained. And in the case of Rafah, and in the case of Kerem Shalom, we want to see those openings restored as soon as possible.”
The Kerem Shalom border crossing between Gaza and Israel reopened for aid deliveries on Wednesday after it was closed over the weekend because of Hamas rocket fire, the Israeli military said. Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday that Israel would open the crossing Wednesday to facilitate aid shipments after Israeli forces took control of it ahead of their planned assault on parts of Rafah.
Tens of thousands flee Rafah; one of three hospitals shuts down
Over 10,000 Palestinians have left Rafah since Monday, said Juliette Touma, spokesperson for UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. Other officials have put the number as high as 50,000.
UNRWA director of planning Sam Rose, speaking on the BBC, said half of the 100,000 people in Israel’s targeted neighborhoods of Rafah are children and most have already been displaced multiple times. There is nowhere safe for them to go, he told the BBC.
“The so-called safe zone cannot fit any more people,” Rose said. “Half of the safe zone is on a sand dune which can’t accommodate people for any length of time. The other half is in Khan Younis, which has been subject to savage, savage bombardment for the last couple weeks.”
The intensifying attacks on Rafah have left one of three hospitals unable to function and the others with only three days of fuel left, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday. The closure of the border crossing there continues to prevent the U.N. from bringing in fuel, he said.
Tedros warned that delivery of humanitarian aid was impeded and that, without fuel, all humanitarian operations will stop.
“At a time when fragile humanitarian operations urgently require expansion, the Rafah military operation is further limiting our ability to reach thousands of people who have been living in dire conditions without adequate food, sanitation, health services and security,” Tedros said in a social media post.
Meanwhile, aid for Gaza was being loaded onto a ship in Cyprus on Wednesday in what was expected to be the first cargo to be delivered using a U.S. pier built to expedite supplies to the besieged enclave.