On May 9, 2024, Israeli Army main battle tanks and other military vehicles were deployed along Israel’s southern border near the Gaza Strip as clashes between Israel and the Hamas movement continued in the Palestinian territories.
Ahmed Gharabri | AFP | Getty Images
“It must have been an earthquake.”
American diplomat Richard Haass described the shocking announcement this way: US President Joe Biden says his administration will halt supplies of certain weapons If Israel goes ahead with its planned invasion of Rafah in the Gaza Strip.
“This has been going on for a while, and Rafah was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Haass, a former Council on Foreign Relations chairman and policy adviser in the George W. Bush administration, said in an interview. Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
“There is real doubt within the government whether Rafah will reach an agreement with the hostages as the Israelis say he will.”
The past few weeks have seen a worrying back-and-forth between Israel and Hamas, as well as mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States, trying to reach a deal that would allow the warring sides to cease fire and release hostages still held by Israel. organize.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long pushed for an invasion of Rafah – Gaza’s southernmost city where more than a million displaced Palestinians have taken refuge – saying it would be essential to defeating Hamas and winning the war. It’s important.
Many governments and humanitarian aid organizations, including the United Nations and the World Health Organization, have warned that invading the overcrowded enclave, already ravaged by military strikes, disease and famine, would have catastrophic humanitarian consequences.
Palestinians living in the area continued to move from neighborhoods in the east of the city to the west of Khan Younis on May 9, 2024, following a ground incursion by Israeli forces into certain communities east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Ashraf Amru | Anadolu | Getty Images
“I made it clear that if they enter Rafah – which they have not yet entered – if they enter Rafah, I will not provide the weapons that have historically been used against Rafah, against the city – to solve this problem,” Bai said. Den said in an interview with CNN on Thursday.
Asked whether civilian deaths were caused by the 2,000-pound bombs the United States launched into Israel, he said: “There are civilians being killed in Gaza as a result of these bombs and other ways of attacking population centers.”
Pentagon confirms suspension of arms shipments to Israel
Pentagon confirms On Wednesday, the government suspended shipments of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs to Israel.
Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reiterated Washington’s “ironclad” support for Israel, but Austin told lawmakers that “it’s about having the right kinds of weapons for the task at hand” and that the US wants to see Israel carry out “more precise” operations.
“The small diameter bomb is a precision weapon that is very useful in dense built environments,” he said, “but may not cause as much collateral damage as a 2,000-pound bomb.”
Netanyahu remains undeterred, saying that if the United States stops delivering weapons, Israel will be “isolated” and fight “with our fingernails.” Many other Israeli lawmakers attacked Biden and the United States over the statement, despite the fact that the United States is Israel’s single largest supporter on the world stage and a source of military funding and weapons.
On May 7, 2024, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant (left) inspected the army at the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip near Gaza Sharafah. An immediate evacuation order was issued and they were called upon to move to the town of Mawasi in southern Gaza.
Israeli Defense Ministry | Anadolu | Getty Images
Posting on X, Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir simply wrote: “Hamas (heart emoji) Biden.”
Biden’s warning signs book for staunch supporter of Israel and first for president who is a staunch supporter of Israel self-proclaimed Zionisthas suspended or threatened to completely stop any arms shipments to the Jewish state.It is also important to note that the suspended shipment in question may still be delivered at a later date, and it Not applicable to $26.4 billion security aid package reported Israel received congressional approval in April.
Does it actually affect anything?
Israeli security experts said the suspension would not affect planned operations in Rafah, while other analysts said the move was largely symbolic but intended to send a serious message. Israeli forces took control of the Gaza side of the key Rafah crossing on Tuesday and have been massing troops there and conducting attacks on parts of the city.
Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official and regional analyst, said: “While the Biden administration has withheld key Israeli munitions to force Israel to delay or halt Operation Rafah, it is unlikely that these munitions will become a factor in Israel’s planned operations. An indispensable weapon.
Melamed believes that “Biden’s comments are emboldening Hamas and Iran and putting U.S. allies in the region at risk,” but he expects the Israeli military’s operations in Rafah to be “slow and precise.” Meaning he believes “Israel is likely to avoid direct conflict with Israel.”
Clayton Allen, U.S. director at political risk firm Eurasia Group, called Biden’s decision “a dramatic move that will ultimately have some impact.” impact on Israeli capabilities,” but added that it “wouldn’t impact much of the U.S. aid or really diminish what they can do in the coming weeks.
Others applauded the move. Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont said this must be “the first step.”
“Our influence is clear,” Sanders said in a statement. “For years, the United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel. We can no longer be Netanyahu’s target for the Palestinian people. Complicity in a terrible war.”
Meanwhile, DAWN, a non-profit organization focused on U.S. Middle East policy and human rights, said in a statement that the Biden administration’s “pause on dropping large-scale bombs on Israel is an important but belated acknowledgment that Israel has been using U.S. weapons.” Violating the most basic laws of war and wantonly killing Palestinian civilians.
CNBC has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for comment.
Children sit in trucks as Palestinians continue to leave a neighborhood in the city’s east with their packed belongings as Israel continues its attacks on Gaza Sharafah on May 8, 2024.
Ali Jadallah | Anadolu | Getty Images
Israel insists the war is against Hamas and its military strives to avoid civilian casualties. Israel’s military assault on Gaza has killed more than 34,000 people in the besieged enclave, according to the Palestinian health authority in Gaza. The incursion was triggered by an Oct. 7 Hamas-led terror attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages, 112 of whom have since been released.
For Michael Koplow, chief policy director of the Israel Policy Forum, Biden’s warning represents a profound shift that deserves to be taken seriously.
“Israel has seemed to be at an inflection point since October 7, but now it is at a truly dangerous moment,” Koplow wrote in a column on the forum’s website on Thursday.
“At the worst possible moment, the cracks in the U.S.-Israeli relationship are showing more and more light, and Israel’s attitude that it is primarily the United States that fills them has found no buyers.”
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