Biden puts hold on weapons to Israel as Bibi crosses red line

Netanyahu says Israel is prepared to ‘stand alone’ in its war in Gaza if Washington stops supplying weapons: Egypt claims it pushed the US for a harder stance.

Israeli soldiers dismantling a tunnel in Gaza. Picture: IDF/AFP.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that Israel was prepared to “stand alone” in its war in Gaza, after Washington vowed to stop supplying some weapons if a threatened assault on Rafah goes ahead.

“If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone,” Mr Netanyahu said in a statement.

In comments delivered on the eve of Israel’s Independence Day, marking the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Mr Netanyahu reminded Israelis that in 1948,we were few against many”.

“Today we are much stronger. We are determined and we are united in order to defeat our enemies and those who want to destroy us,” he said.

“We will fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than fingernails and with that same strength of spirit, with God’s help, together we will win.”

Israel’s ambassador to Washington described Mr Biden’s decision as “unfortunate.” Ambassador Michael Herzog told a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace webinar. “It sends the wrong message to Hamas and to our enemies in the region,” he told a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace webinar.

“It puts us in a corner because we have to deal with Rafah one way or the other.”

Their remarks came after Joe Biden delivered a rare rebuke to Jerusalem as it begins a campaign to root out Hamas in southern Gaza, warning the US would stop supplying artillery shells and other weapons to the Jewish state if it attacks the remaining Hamas stronghold in Rafah.

Decrying the thousands of civilian deaths throughout the besieged strip since Israel retaliated following a Hamas attacks killed around 1200 Israelis and others in October, the US President said the Netanyahu government was near to crossing the US administration’s red line, which would jeopardise US support.

“It’s just wrong. We’re not gonna supply the weapons and artillery shells that have been used” in Israel’s offensive against Hamas, Mr Biden told CNN in an interview that aired Wednesday night (Thursday AEST).

“I’ve made it clear to Bibi and the war cabinet: They’re not going to get our support if they go [into] these population centres,” he added, referring to the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu”.

However Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari stressed that the army had “enough weaponry to complete our mission in Rafah”.

“The United States has helped us in an unprecedented manner since the start of the war,” he said in a televised address.

“We have our own interests and we are sensitive to the US interests,” he added.

Meanwhile Egypt has reportedly claimed that Washington’s harder stance was due partly to pressure from Cairo. An Egyptian official told Israel’s state broadcaster Kan the Eyptians told the US Israel’s actions in Rafah were sobataging Cairo’s mediation efforts and risked unrest within Egypt.

Mr Biden made his comments to CNN after Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed a freeze last week on a shipment of 1800 2000-lb (907kg) bombs and 1700 500-lb (226kg) bombs.

“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which [Israel] goes after population centres,” Mr Biden said.

The president was speaking against a backdrop of weeks-long student protests across US university campuses against US support for Israel, which critics say has adopted a too heavy-handed approach in its reprisals against terrorist group Hamas.

Israeli forces operate with tanks and bulldozers in Gaza.

Republicans attacked the president for leaving Israel political and military stranded for domestic political reasons in a presidential election year, amid Democratic party concerns young people and Muslim voters might turn against the party in November.

Earlier, a US official told The Wall Street Journal that Washington was especially concerned with the impact the bombs could have on dense urban settlements in Gaza.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States had “very serious concerns” about Israel’s stated plans to go into Rafah, where more than one million Palestinians have taken shelter during the war.

“So we have paused one shipment of near-term assistance and we are reviewing others,” Miller said.

In what was the toughest criticism of Israel by the US since at least 2016, when president Barack Obama refused to veto a UN resolution that demanded Israel stop sending settlers into the Palestinian controlled West Bank, Mr Biden said the US would continue to supply missile interceptors to support Israel’s irone dome.

“But we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells,” he said, adding that Jerusalem had not yet crossed a US ‘red line’ the president first laid out in public comments in March.

“People should be absolutely clear that we are committed to Israel’s security,” he said, stressing the US maintained a its “long-term commitment” to Israel’s security, recently evidenced by Washington’s military support for Israel as it fended off Iranian missile attacks last month.

The president’s interview came as the Israeli military said a recent air strike had killed the commander of Hamas’s naval unit in Gaza City, Mohammed Ahmed Ali, “in the past day”, the military said in a statement.

Israel continued to bombard Rafah on Wednesday as the military said ground troops conducted “targeted raids” in the southern Gazan city, with negotiations to halt the seven-month war underway in Cairo.

Israel has defied international objections and sent tanks into Rafah, which is crowded with Palestinian civilians sheltering near the Egyptian border, seizing early Tuesday a crossing that is the main conduit for aid into the besieged territory.

Mr Biden last criticised Israel publicly in late October, alongside Anthony Albanese at a White House press conference when the prime minister was visiting Washington for a state visit.

“They’re attacking Palestinians in places that they’re entitled to be. It has to stop that have to be held accountable, it has to stop now,” Mr Biden then said, referring to reports Israel had continued to send Israeli settlers into the West Bank contrary to UN resolutions an US wishes.

The Israeli military said Wednesday it was reopening another major aid crossing into Gaza, Kerem Shalom, as well as the Erez crossing.

But the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said the Kerem Shalom crossing – which Israel shut after a rocket attack killed four soldiers on Sunday – remained closed.

Former US Secretary of State John Kerry in December 2016, the tail end of the Obama administration, admonished Israel for taking US support for granted.

“Regrettably, some seem to believe that the U.S. friendship means the US must accept any policy, regardless of our own interests, our own positions, our own words, our own principles – even after urging again and again that the policy must change. Friends need to tell each other the hard truths, and friendships require mutual respect,” he said in what was a controversial speech at the time.

With AFP