Israel will stand alone
Tel Aviv to defy US threat to withdraw arms supplies
GAZA: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to “fight with our fingernails”, while dismissing Joe Biden’s warning that the US would not provide arms for a major military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
“If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone. If we need to, we will fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than fingernails,” Mr Netanyahu said.
The Prime Minister made the comments after delegations for Israel and Hamas, as well as CIA chief Bill Burns, left the ceasefire talks in Cairo.
It was unclear whether the talks had broken down or simply paused, but the failure to reach an agreement in this week’s round of meetings has raised fears of an imminent Israeli attack on Rafah.
Israel has defied international objections by sending in tanks and conducting “targeted raids” in the border city, which is crowded with displaced Palestinian civilians. The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees said about 80,000 people had fled Rafah in the three days since Israel intensified its military operations in the southern Gaza city.
Mr Biden warned he would stop US weapons supplies to Israel if it pushed ahead with its Rafah ground offensive.
“If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used … to deal with the cities,” he said. “We’re not gonna supply the weapons and the artillery shells that have been used.”
On Tuesday, Israel forces seized Rafah’s border crossing into Egypt, which has served as the main entry point for aid into besieged Gaza.
The White House condemned the interruption to humanitarian deliveries at the time, and the secretary of defence later confirmed Washington had paused, for the time being, a shipment of heavy bombs to Israel.
“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs,” Mr Biden said. “It’s just wrong.”
He insisted, however, that the US was “not walking away from Israel’s security”.
The US, along with Egypt and Cairo, has been heavily involved in talks in Cairo aimed at brokering a ceasefire.
Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Friday (AEST) its delegation attending Gaza ceasefire negotiations in Cairo had left the city for Qatar, adding the “ball is now completely” in Israel’s hands.
“The negotiating delegation left Cairo heading to Doha. In practice, the occupation (Israel) rejected the proposal submitted by the mediators and raised objections to it on several central issues,” the group said in a message to other Palestinian factions.
The deal, the group said, involved a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, the return of Palestinians displaced by the war, and the exchange of hostages held by militants for Palestinian prisoners. with the aim of a “permanent ceasefire”.