Israel is recalibrating the next steps of its war against
Hamas following warnings by
President Biden that the United States will
cut off offensive weapons shipments if the Israeli military advances into Rafah, the southern Gazan city that is harboring more than 1 million Palestinians.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to respond to Biden's unprecedented policy shift. But Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Netanyahu, said that the "surprise" warning has caught Israel off guard and will compel the war cabinet to reconsider whether and how it will enter Rafah — "if it will bear the consequence of going in without American support, or if it will stop the operation, which will allow Hamas to be unharmed in the area."
The public rupture, which included Biden's assertion that civilians have been killed by the U.S.-made munitions supplied to Israel, comes after months of disagreement between the two countries over Israel's conduct in the war, and as cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas in Cairo teeter toward collapse.
On Thursday, Hamas said that it was sending its delegation back to Doha, Qatar, and that it remained committed to the cease-fire outline that it announced on Monday, even as Israel's moves threatened negotiations. Israel maintains that the agreement Hamas approved is different from the one on the table.
Several Israeli officials did respond to Biden's threat and repeated Israeli vows to dismantle Hamas's four remaining battalions in Rafah and seal off the border with Egypt, where Israel says Hamas has a subterranean tunnel network designed to facilitate the smuggling of weapons.
"Israel will continue to fight Hamas until its destruction," Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz
wrote Thursday on X, without mentioning the crisis. "There is no war more just than this."
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was blunter, tweeting, "Hamas [heart emoji] Biden," suggesting that the militant group loves the U.S. president. The two ministers are key to the ruling coalition but not part of Israel's war cabinet.
An estimated 80,000 people have evacuated from eastern Rafah in recent days, according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the largest aid agency in the enclave. The Israeli incursion has shut the two main crossings into southern Gaza, Rafah and Kerem Shalom. While Israeli authorities said Kerem Shalom has been reopened, keeping their promises to the U.S. administration,
aid agencies say trucks are not going through.
Hamas has also periodically targeted the Kerem Shalom crossing, including on Sunday, when four Israeli soldiers were killed in what Israeli described as a Hamas mortar attack.
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