President Biden last week halted an arms shipment to Israel to prevent the US-made weapons from being used in a long-threatened attack on the city of Rafah, administration officials said Tuesday evening, a sign of the growing rift between Washington and Jerusalem over the proceedings from the war.
The president was holding back 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs that he feared could be dropped on Rafah, where more than a million Gazans have taken refuge, officials said. The government is examining whether to block future transfers, including guidance packages that convert so-called dumb bombs into precision-guided munitions.
The decision to delay delivery of the 3,500 bombs marked the first time Mr Biden has used his power to restrict arms as a tool to influence Israel's approach to the war since the Hamas-led terrorist attack of 7 October. Some of Biden's Democratic allies in Congress have been urging him to do so for weeks limit or stop arms shipments to Israelsomething he had so far refused to do because of his strong support for the war against Hamas.
Israeli officials announced the weapons pause to Axios earlier this week, but U.S. officials declined to confirm this in briefings or privately until Tuesday evening. The fact that they ultimately did so was a clear indication of the growing frustration among government officials that their Israeli counterparts are not heeding US warnings against a major operation in Rafah that could lead to large numbers of civilian casualties. Confirmation of the weapons pause came just hours later Israel sent tanks into the city in southern Gaza.
A US official said the administration began reviewing arms shipments last month when it became clear that Israel appeared to be deciding on a Rafah operation. Mr. Biden initially took the position that Israel should not attack Rafah without a plan to effectively minimize civilian casualties, but in recent weeks the White House has increasingly signaled that it did not believe such a plan was even possible.
Israel has not made clear whether it is about to launch an attack on Rafah, but has taken steps in recent days that appeared to indicate it was moving in that direction. Israeli forces ordered the evacuation of 110,000 civilians from Rafah and carried out airstrikes on targets in the city's border areas in response to Hamas rockets that killed four Israeli soldiers over the weekend.
Israel on Tuesday called the entry of tanks into Rafah and the seizure of the city's border crossing with Egypt a limited operation to eliminate Hamas fighters and infrastructure linked to the rocket attack. The actions did not appear to be the forefront of the larger attack that Israel has promised. But the evacuation order and the limited military actions seemed intended for that purpose put pressure on Hamas while negotiators meet in Cairo to discuss a possible ceasefire agreement.
Mr. Biden made no mention of his decision to withhold the bombs during the attack a speech earlier Tuesday during a Holocaust memorial ceremony at the Capitol, but reiterated his support for Israel. “My commitment to the security of the Jewish people, the security of Israel and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad, even if we disagree,” he said.
The government is not stopping all weapons at Israel, nor is it permanently withholding the bombs in question at this time. In fact, officials said the government had just approved the final tranche of aid worth $827 million in weapons and equipment. The administration plans to send “every dollar” of the money just appropriated by Congress, the officials said.
But they said they were particularly concerned about the damage that could be caused by the 2,000-pound bombs in a dense urban area like Rafah, with so many displaced civilians.