President Biden stopped an arms shipment to Israel last week to prevent the U.S.-made weapons from being used in a long-threatened attack on the city of Rafah, administration officials said Tuesday night, a sign of the growing rift between Washington and Jerusalem about warfare.
The president held back 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs that he feared could be dropped on Rafah, where more than a million Gazans have sought refuge, the officials said. The government is considering whether to withhold future transfers, including guidance kits that convert so-called “dumb bombs” into precision-guided munitions.
The decision to delay delivery of the 3,500 bombs marked the first time since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terror attack that Mr. Biden has used his arms restriction power as a tool to influence Israel’s approach to the war. Several of Mr. Biden’s Democratic allies in Congress have been calling on him for weeks to limit or stop arms sales to Israel, something he had previously rejected because of his strong support for the war against Hamas.
Israeli officials announced the ceasefire to Axios earlier this week, but U.S. officials refused to confirm it in briefings or privately until Tuesday evening. The fact that they finally did so was a clear sign of the growing frustration among government officials over their Israeli counterparts’ failure to heed U.S. warnings about a major operation in Rafah that could result in numerous civilian casualties take heed. The confirmation of the ceasefire came just hours after Israel sent tanks into the southern Gaza town.
A U.S. official said the government began reviewing arms shipments last month when it became clear that Israel appeared to be making a decision on a Rafah operation. Mr. Biden initially took the position that Israel should not attack Rafah without a plan to effectively minimize civilian casualties, but in recent weeks the White House has increasingly indicated that it does not believe such a plan is even possible.
Israel has not made it clear whether it is close to launching the attack on Rafah, but has taken steps in recent days that suggest it is moving in that direction. Israeli forces ordered the evacuation of 110,000 civilians from Rafah and carried out airstrikes against targets in the city’s border areas in response to Hamas rockets that killed four Israeli soldiers over the weekend.
Israel described the entry of tanks into Rafah and the occupation of the city’s border crossing with Egypt on Tuesday as a limited operation to eliminate Hamas militants and infrastructure linked to the rocket attack. The actions did not appear to be the vanguard of the larger attack Israel had promised. However, the evacuation order and limited military action appeared intended to keep pressure on Hamas while negotiators meet in Cairo to discuss a possible ceasefire agreement.
Mr. Biden did not mention his decision to withhold the bombs during a speech early Tuesday at a Holocaust memorial ceremony at the Capitol, but reiterated his support for Israel. “My commitment to the security of the Jewish people, the security of Israel and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad, even when we disagree,” he said.
The government is neither stopping the supply of all weapons to Israel nor is it permanently withholding the bombs in question at this time. In fact, officials said the government had just approved the final tranche of $827 million in aid for weapons and equipment. The administration intends to transfer “every dollar” of the money just appropriated by Congress, the officials said.
But they said they were particularly concerned about the damage the 2,000-pound bombs could cause in a densely populated urban area like Rafah, with so many displaced civilians.
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2024-05-08 04:10:37
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