Israel ready to stand alone in Gaza, Netanyahu says in veiled Biden rebuff over weapons delay
- Israeli prime minister responds to US threat to withhold arms over concerns about a Rafah offensive
- Israel has said victory in the seven-month-old conflict is impossible without taking the southern Gaza city
Israelis are ready to fight with their “fingernails”, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a thinly veiled rebuff to US President Joe Biden’s warning that arms supplies could be withheld over a planned operation in Gaza.
Israel’s long-threatened move against Rafah, where it says thousands of Hamas fighters and potentially dozens of the hostages they seized in an October 7 attack are ensconced among more than a million war-displaced Palestinians, began this week with the evacuation of some civilians followed by limited incursions.
The Biden administration has said it cannot support a major Rafah invasion in the absence of what it would deem a credible plan to safeguard non-combatants.
Israel has said victory in the seven-month-old conflict is impossible without taking Rafah.
The Netanyahu government had kept silent over reports that Washington was holding back a shipment of aerial bombs – until, on Wednesday, Biden went public with the measure, saying it was part of a US warning to the Israelis not to “go into Rafah”.