Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike Tuesday on buildings near the separating wall between Egypt and Rafah, southern Gaza Strip. Ramez Habboub/Associated Press
The Biden administration paused the shipment of thousands of weapons to Israel, including controversial 2,000-pound bombs, amid mounting concern about the country’s plan to expand a military operation in southern Gaza that could dramatically increase the conflict’s death toll, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
“Israel should not launch a major ground operation in Rafah, where more than a million people are sheltering with nowhere else to go,” said a senior administration official, explaining the U.S. decision to pause the weapons shipments. “We are especially focused on the end-use of the 2,000-pound bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza.”
The disclosure marks the first known instance of a pause in U.S. arms transfers since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack into Israel that killed more than 1,200 people.
Since then, the United States has surged tens of thousands of bombs and missiles to its ally even as huge swaths of Gaza have been turned to rubble and the death toll among Palestinians has ballooned to more than 34,000, many of them women and children, according to local health authorities. President Biden has described the bombing as “indiscriminate,” but he has been reluctant to leverage weapons transfers to try to force a change in Israel’s behavior.
A second U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, described the move as a “shot across the bow” intended to underscore to Israeli leaders the seriousness of U.S. concerns about the offensive in Rafah, where an estimated 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are massed in camps near Gaza’s border with Egypt.
The Israeli Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The shipment being prepared for delivery to Israel last week included 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, the officials said. That decision will be felt quickly as Israel continues to rapidly expend munitions as the conflict passes the seven-month mark.
The Biden administration is reviewing other planned transfers that are not set to ship imminently, the first official said. That pertains to 6,500 Joint Direct Attack Munitions, which convert free-fall “dumb bombs” into precision-guided weapons, people familiar with the matter said.
Though delayed, those munitions as well as last week’s paused shipment could still be delivered depending on the White House’s discretion. “We have not made a final determination on how to proceed,” the first official said.
Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli strike Tuesday on a residential building in Rafah, Gaza Strip. Ismael Abu Dayyah/Associated Press
The unprecedented decision follows weeks of consultations beginning in April between U.S. and Israeli officials on how to meet the humanitarian needs of civilians in Rafah and “how to operate differently against Hamas there than they have elsewhere in Gaza,” the first official said. But in recent days, it became clear to the Biden administration that “Israeli leaders seemed to approach a decision point on such an operation,” forcing Washington to initiate its review of proposed transfers.
Despite the pause, the Israeli military has enough weapons supplied by the U.S. and other partners to conduct the Rafah operation if it chooses to cast aside U.S. objections, the first official said.
He added that none of the pauses apply to the billions of dollars in additional Israel aid passed by Congress last month. With regards to that, the Biden administration just approved $827 million worth of weapons and equipment for Israel in the latest tranche of Foreign Military Financing, the official said.
When asked about the delays earlier Tuesday, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller declined to offer a rationale but said that U.S. support for Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas remains intact.
In Washington, U.S. military support for Israel receives overwhelming support from Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and powerful pro-Israel interest groups including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is spending tens of millions of dollars this election cycle to unseat Democrats it views as insufficiently pro-Israel.
Republicans assailed news of a delay in weapons approvals as a “reprehensible” betrayal. “The United States must stand with Israel. Period,” said Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.)
But outside of Washington, Biden has come under significant criticism for his staunch support for Israel from rank-and-file Democrats, including Arab American voters in key swing states. As conditions in Gaza have worsened – with the spread of famine and lack of medical care – protests have erupted across college campuses, and Biden has been met with jeers and howls from pro-Palestinian protesters at numerous campaign events.
Biden told reporters last week that student protests have not forced him to change his Gaza policy, but U.S. officials have made clear their view that an Israeli offensive into Rafah, a key transit point for aid, would be disastrous.
On Monday, Biden warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about his administration’s concern.
“The president doesn’t want to see operations in Rafah that put at greater risk the more than a million people that are seeking refuge there,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
A day earlier, Netanyahu rejected calls to halt the war in Gaza, saying that “if Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.
“I say to the leaders of the world: No amount of pressure, no decision by any international forum will stop Israel from defending itself,” he said.
The State Department has said an incursion into Rafah would “dramatically increase the suffering of the Palestinian people, would lead to an increase in loss of civilian life, would dramatically disrupt the delivery of humanitarian assistance … the great majority of which is coming through Kerem Shalom or Rafah and is being distributed inside the Rafah area,” said Miller, the State Department spokesman.
Netanyahu appeared closer to a point of no return Tuesday as Israel Defense Forces announced it had taken control of the Gazan side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, marking its first ground incursion into the southern Gazan city.
U.S. officials remain hopeful that a hostage deal that includes a cease-fire can forestall a full-scale Israeli invasion, but those prospects became bleaker with the start of the Israeli operation.
Negotiators “should be able to close the remaining gaps” between Israel and Hamas, Kirby told reporters. “Everybody is coming to the table,” including delegations from both Israel and Hamas, Kirby said of talks being held in Cairo.
Asked how Hamas’s insistence that any cease-fire be permanent could be reconciled with Israel’s position that it would agree only to a temporary pause in fighting to secure the release of hostages, Kirby said: “I really don’t want to get into talking about the specific parameters.”
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