Biden says he will not give Israel weapons to attack Gaza's Rafah

WASHINGTON

US President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he will not send Israel bombs and artillery shells to attack the southern Gazan city of Rafah in what marks the first time he has conditioned aid to Israel.

The warning comes after Israel began what US officials are calling a "limited" operation to seize Rafah's border crossing point with Egypt on Tuesday after Hamas agreed to a cease-fire proposal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to launch a ground invasion of the city "with or without" a deal with Hamas.

Biden acknowledged that US weapons have been used to kill civilians in Gaza as he issued a stark warning to Netanyahu not to proceed with his plans for Rafah, where some 1.5 million displaced Palestinians have sought refuge on top of the city's pre-war population of over 200,000.

"Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers," Biden said in an excerpt of an exclusive interview with the CNN television network, which said he was referring to 2,000-pound bombs.

"I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – 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," he added.

Biden has long resisted calls to condition US military support for Israel, even as they have increasingly come from members of his own party. He maintained that even as he issued the warning, he would continue to ensure that Tel Aviv has the weapons it needs to defend itself.

“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 just wrong. We’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells.”

Biden said that Israel's actions in Rafah so far have yet to cross any "red lines" that would prompt him to overhaul his Gaza policy.

“They haven’t gone into the population centers. What they did is right on the border. And it’s causing problems with, right now, in terms of – with Egypt, which I’ve worked very hard to make sure we have a relationship and help,” he said.

“I’ve made it clear to Bibi and the war cabinet: They’re not going to get our support, if in fact they go on these population centers," he added, referring to Netanyahu by a nickname.

The full interview is slated to air later Wednesday night.

At least 34,844 Palestinians have been killed, including 14,944 children and 9,849 women, and 78,404 people have been injured in the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 last year. Israel launched its offensive in response to a Hamas-led attack that day in which over 1,100 people were killed.

In Gaza, thousands more missing people are feared dead under the rubble amid widespread devastation caused by Israeli attacks, including its use of US-supplied 2,000-pound bombs in the densely-populated coastal enclave.

Biden paused shipments of the munitions to Israel last week. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed that the freeze affected "one shipment of high payload munitions."