U.S. President Joe Biden publicly warned Israel Wednesday saying that Washington would stop supplying weapons if Israeli forces launched an all-out invasion on southern Gaza's refugee-packed city of Rafah.
"I made it clear that if they go into Rafah ..., I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem," Biden said in an interview with CNN.
Biden's comments represent his strongest public language to date in his effort to deter an Israeli assault on Rafah while underscoring a growing rift between the U.S. and its strongest ally in the Middle East.
Biden acknowledged Israel has used U.S. weapons to kill civilians in Gaza, where Israel has mounted a seven-month-old genocidal war aimed at annihilating the Palestinian resistance group Hamas. Israel's campaign has so far killed 34,789 Palestinians, mostly civilians, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
"Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers," he said when asked about 2,000-pound (907-kilogram) bombs sent to Israel.
Israel this week attacked Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have sought refuge but Biden said he did not consider Israel’s strikes a full-scale invasion because they have not struck "population centers.”
A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Washington had carefully reviewed the delivery of weapons that might be used in Rafah and as a result paused a shipment consisting of 1,800 2,000-pound (907-kg) bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs.
The interview was released hours after Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III publicly acknowledged Biden’s decision last week to hold up the delivery of thousands of heavy bombs was taken out of concern for Rafah, where Washington opposes a major Israeli invasion without civilian safeguards.
The war was triggered by the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion of southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Biden said the U.S. would continue to provide defensive weapons to Israel, including its Iron Dome air defense system.
"We’re going to continue to make sure Israel is secure in terms of Iron Dome and their ability to respond to attacks that came out of the Middle East recently," he said. "But it’s, it’s just wrong. We’re not going to – we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells."
