Israeli officials slam Biden after decision to delay arms shipments

JERUSALEM

Israeli officials opened fire on US President Joe Biden on Thursday after he decided to delay arms shipments to Israel over its offensive on Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip.

“Israel will continue to fight Hamas until its destruction,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote on X, in an apparent reaction to Biden’s decision.

"There is no war more just than this," he added about Israel's deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip, which killed more than 34,900 people following a Hamas attack last October.

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote a sarcastic comment about Biden’s decision.

"Hamas [loves] Biden," he wrote on his X account.

Extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for continuing the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.

“We must continue this war until victory, despite the opposition of the Biden administration and the stopping of arms shipments," he said.

Smotrich alleged that Israel has "no other choice."

Biden said in an interview on CNN on Wednesday that he paused arms shipments to Israel over its offensive on Rafah, where some 1.5 million displaced Palestinians have sheltered from Israel’s ongoing war on the Gaza Strip.

"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," Biden said.

Biden acknowledged that US weapons have been used to kill civilians in Gaza.

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

Over seven months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January said it is "plausible" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and ordered Tel Aviv to stop such acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara