‘We will fight with our fingernails,’ Netanyahu says after U.S. threat to curb arms
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that a U.S. threat to withhold some arms would not prevent his army from continuing its offensive in Gaza, indicating it might proceed with an invasion of the packed city of Rafah against the wishes of its closest ally.
U.S. President Joe Biden has urged Israel not to go ahead with such an operation over fears it would exacerbate the humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian enclave. On Wednesday, he said the United States would not provide offensive weapons for a Rafah offensive.
But in a statement, Netanyahu said: “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.”
Israel’s top military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, also appeared to downplay the practical impact of any arms holdup. “The army has munitions for the missions it plans, and for the missions in Rafah, too — we have what we need,” he said at a news conference.
Israel has repeatedly threatened to invade Rafah, where some 1.3 million Palestinians — over half the population — have sought refuge. The city in southern Gaza is also the main hub for humanitarian operations, which have been severely hindered by the closure of Gaza’s two main crossings this week.
Israel says Rafah is the last stronghold of Hamas and that the army must go in if it hopes to dismantle the group and return scores of hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war.
In an earlier response to Biden’s decision, Israel’s farright National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote a post on the platform X with a heart between the words “Hamas” and “Biden.” He and other ultranationalist members of Netanyahu’s coalition support a largescale Rafah operation and have threatened to bring down his government if it doesn’t happen.
Aid groups say a Rafah invasion would be catastrophic. The UN says most of the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians suffer from hunger and that northern Gaza is already experiencing “full-blown famine.”
Even the limited operation Israel launched earlier this week, in which a tank brigade captured the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, has thrown humanitarian operations into crisis.
It also complicated what had been months of efforts by the U.S., Qatar and Egypt to broker a ceasefire and the release of hostages. Hamas this week said it had accepted an Egyptian-Qatari ceasefire proposal, but Israel says the plan does not meet its “core” demands. Several days of follow-up talks appeared to end inconclusively on Thursday.
The war began with Hamas’s surprise attack into southern Israel, in which it killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 250 hostage.
The militants are still holding 100 captives and the remains of more than 30 after most of the rest were released during a ceasefire last year.
The war has killed more than 34,800 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Israel’s capture of the Rafah crossing Tuesday forced the closure of a key entry point for fuel, and it’s unclear when it will reopen.
The first aid ship bound for an American-built floating pier to be installed in Gaza departed early Thursday. But it’s unclear when that corridor will be up and running, and even then it won’t be able to handle as much aid as Gaza’s two main land crossings.
Major Pete Nguyen, a Pentagon spokesman, said Thursday that parts of the pier are still in the Israeli port of Ashdod awaiting more favourable seas before being moved to Gaza.
He said the U.S. vessel Sagamore, which left Cyprus, would transport aid to another ship waiting off the coast of Gaza.