US halts weapons shipment to Israel as forces close in on Rafah

After delivering months of support, the US has made a move against Israel’s interests as forces close in on a city still filled with civilians.

This handout image courtesy of Maxar Technologies taken by the WorldView-1 satellite on May 7, 2024 shows an aerial view of a burning building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. (Photo by Satellite image ©2024 Maxar Technologies / AFP)

After delivering months of support, the US has made a significant move that could detrimentally affect Israel’s war in Gaza as its forces close in on a city still filled with civilians.

The United States said it paused a shipment of bombs to Israel over fears it would invade Rafah, in southern Gaza on the Egyptian border, marking the first time in the conflict that US President Joe Biden has squeezed military aid to its ally.

Washington halted the load of 1800 907kg bombs and 1700 226kg bombs after a senior administration official said Israel had not “fully addressed” US concerns about a major ground operation in Rafah.

News of the move comes as the White House blasted the “unacceptable” closure of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt after Israel sent tanks in earlier Tuesday — while holding out hope for a ceasefire with Hamas.

On Wednesday, Israel struck sites in Gaza near the main border crossing with Egypt.

Israel has since said it has reopened another corner crossing in southern Gaza.

Teh government of Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed for weeks to launch a ground incursion into Rafah, despite a clamour of international objection.

The attacks on the southern city, which is packed with more than one million displaced civilians, came as negotiators and mediators met in Cairo to try to hammer out a hostage-release and truce deal in the seven-month war.

Israel has vowed for weeks to launch a ground incursion into Rafah, despite a clamour of international objection.

An Israeli helicopter fires flares near the border with the Gaza Strip as seen from a position on the Israeli side of border.

The pausing of weapons marks the first time that Mr Biden has acted on the warning that he gave Prime Minister Netanyahu in April that US policy on Gaza would depend on how Israel treated civilians.

The US official said Mr Biden’s administration made the decision on the weapons when it appeared Israel was on the verge of a major ground operation into Rafah.

Israeli and US officials had been discussing alternatives but “those discussions are ongoing and have not fully addressed our concerns,” the senior US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israel’s chief military spokesman Daniel Hagari played down the gesture and said co-operation with the US is currently at “a scope without precedent, I think, in history”.

He said any disagreements would be settled “behind closed doors”.

This handout image courtesy of Maxar Technologies taken by the WorldView-1 satellite on May 7, 2024 shows an aerial view of a burning building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

Calls to prevent ‘genocide’

Meanwhile, Qatar has called on the international community on to prevent a “genocide” in Rafah.

In a statement The Gulf state, which has been mediating between Israel and militant group Hamas, appealed “for urgent international action to prevent the city from being invaded and a crime of genocide being committed”.

Qatar, which has hosted Hamas’s political office in Doha since 2012, has been engaged — along with Egypt and the United States — in months of behind-the-scenes work between Israel and the Palestinian group.

The African Union (AU) said it condemned the Israeli incursion into the southern Gaza city, calling for the international community to stop “this deadly escalation” of the war.

Palestinian civil defence and local residents evacuate a wounded man from the destroyed house which was struck by Israeli bombardment in Rafah.

People and first responders carry away a rescued victim from the site of a building that was hit by Israeli bombardment.

AU Commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat “firmly condemns the extension of this war to the Rafah crossing, the only corridor for humanitarian aid”, it said in a statement, after Israeli tanks captured the main conduit for supplies into the besieged Palestinian territory.

Russia, which is currently at war with Ukraine, also threw in its two cents, insisting that Israel strictly observe international humanitarian law in Rafah.

At a briefing, spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia sees the incursion as “an additional destabilising factor” in an area with more than a million civilians, and therefore “we demand strict observance of the provisions of international humanitarian law,” the RIA Novosti state news agency reported.