Netanyahu team set to visit U.S. for talks
WASHINGTON — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday agreed to send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to discuss with Biden administration officials a prospective Rafah operation as each side is looking to make “clear to the other its perspective,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.
The agreement to hold talks about Rafah came as Biden and Netanyahu spoke Monday, their first interaction in more than a month, as the divide has grown between the allies over the food crisis in Gaza and Israel’s conduct during the war, according to the White House. Sullivan said the talks will happen in the coming days and are expected to involve military, intelligence and humanitarian experts.
The White House has been skeptical of Netanyahu’s plan to carry out an operation in the southern city of Rafah, where about 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering, as Israel looks to eliminate Hamas after the militant group’s deadly Oct. 7 attack.
Sullivan said Biden in the call once again urged Netanyahu not to carry out a Rafah operation. At the coming talks, he said U.S. officials will lay out “an alternative approach that would target key Hamas elements in Rafah and secure the Egypt-Gaza border without a major ground invasion.”
“The president has rejected, and did again today, the straw man that raising questions about Rafah is the same as raising questions about defeating Hamas,” Sullivan said. “That’s just nonsense. Our position is that Hamas should not be allowed a safe haven in Rafah or anywhere else, but a major ground operation there would be a mistake. It would lead to more innocent civilian deaths, worsen the already dire humanitarian crisis, deepen the anarchy in Gaza and further isolate Israel internationally.”
In a statement after the call, Netanyahu made no direct mention of the tension.
“We discussed the latest developments in the war, including Israel’s commitment to achieving all of the war’s goals: Eliminating Hamas, freeing all of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza never [again] constitutes a threat to Israel — while providing the necessary humanitarian aid that will assist in achieving these goals,” Netanyahu said.
Even as they express frustration about aspects of the Israeli operations, the White House acknowledges that Israel has made significant progress in degrading Hamas. And Sullivan revealed on Monday that an Israeli operation last week killed Hamas’ third in command, Marwan Issa.
“The president told the prime minister again today that we share the goal of defeating Hamas, but we just believe you need a coherent and sustainable strategy to make that happen,” Sullivan said.