No alternative to Rafah invasion, Netanyahu says, as rift with US grows
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday pushed aside President Biden’s opposition to a planned ground invasion of the city of Rafah in southern Gaza. He said his government would press ahead despite pleas for restraint from the United States and key allies.
Mr Netanyahu made these comments to Israeli lawmakers a day after speaking by phone with Mr Biden, who reiterated his position against an offensive against Rafah, arguing that it could be disastrous for the people there and that Israel had other ways to achieve his goal. of defeating Hamas.
At the president’s request, Netanyahu agreed to send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to hear US concerns and discuss Rafah, but a day later he insisted there was no alternative. Sending troops to the city is necessary, Netanyahu said on Tuesday, to eliminate Hamas battalions in the city.
“I have made it as clear as possible to the president that we are committed to completing the elimination of these battalions in Rafah, and there is no way to do this without a ground invasion,” Mr Netanyahu said.
The Israeli leader acknowledged the dispute with the Biden administration, saying Israel was “embroiled in a dual campaign,” one military and one diplomatic.
“The diplomatic struggle gives us the time and resources to achieve the full results of the war,” he said.
A US State Department spokesman, Vedant Patel, said of Mr Netanyahu’s comments: “We are simply in a different place and have a different point of view.” The government believes there are “alternative approaches that would target key elements of Hamas,” he said, and “that would do so without a major ground operation in Rafah.”
As he becomes increasingly isolated abroad and unpopular at home, Netanyahu is trying to maintain American support while holding together a fractious governing coalition with ultranationalist hardliners who oppose any softening of Israel’s approach to Gaza. Despite his firm language on Tuesday, it may not be clear whether he shows any flexibility until U.S. and Israeli teams meet next week to discuss Rafah.
Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 31,000 people in the Gaza Strip, according to the territory’s health officials, and the prospect of a military incursion into Rafah, where more than a million civilians are sheltering, has raised alarms that even more civilians are arrested in the Gaza Strip. crossfire.
Fleeing Israeli attacks has become a grim cycle for civilians in Gaza. Israeli evacuation orders since October have prompted more than a million people to move from one destination to another, each time packing their belongings and seeking transportation — vehicle, cart or on foot — to escape airstrikes and ground fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Following evacuation orders, civilians have often found themselves in new locations, embroiled in fighting, subject to airstrikes, or without adequate food, water, shelter, sanitation, and other essential services. Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, said on Monday that Israel had not presented any plan to ensure that people fleeing an offensive in Rafah have somewhere safe to go.
“It would lead to more civilian deaths and worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis,” Mr. Sullivan said told reportersdetailing the argument the president made against Mr. Netanyahu.
A group of experts convened by the United Nations warned on Monday that food shortages were so severe that famine was “imminent” and that the enclave was on the brink of a “major acceleration in deaths and malnutrition.”
United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk on Tuesday blamed Israel for what he said was the entirely preventable catastrophe of famine unfolding in Gaza.
“The situation of hunger, starvation and famine is a result of Israel’s extensive restrictions on the access and distribution of humanitarian aid and commercial goods, the displacement of most of the population, as well as the destruction of critical civilian infrastructure,” said Mr. Turk. in a statement.
Israel has pushed back on criticism that it is restricting access to Gaza, citing its support for several recent initiatives, including efforts to deliver supplies by air and sea that aid groups say are far less efficient than by road. Israel also accuses Hamas of diverting aid and using Palestinian civilians as human shields.
Amid renewed calls from the United Nations for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, diplomatic talks continued this week in Doha, Qatar. David Barnea, the head of Israel’s foreign spy agency Mossad, who serves as head of the country’s delegation to the ceasefire negotiations, left the Doha talks on Tuesday.
Israeli news media reported that other members of the Israeli negotiating team remained there, and a spokesman for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, Majed al-Ansari, said on Tuesday that Qatar remained “cautiously optimistic” while “technical teams” continued to discuss details of a possible agreement discuss. .
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken is also returning to the region this week, his sixth trip since the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel. Speaking to reporters during a stop in the Philippines on Tuesday, Mr Blinken said his discussions would include post-war plans for Gaza and the broader Middle East, including a possible deal that would improve relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel normalize and lay the foundation for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.
He plans stops in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. There was no question of a visit to Israel.
The United States has expressed growing concern over civilian deaths in Gaza, but Netanyahu insisted on Tuesday that he and Biden remained aligned on the war’s main objectives.
“We are having a debate with the Americans about the need to enter Rafah, not about the need to eliminate Hamas, but about the need to enter Rafah,” he told lawmakers.
He said that “out of respect for the president” he had agreed to send a team to Washington so that U.S. officials “could present us with their ideas, especially in the humanitarian field.”
The Biden administration has repeatedly warned Israel against sending ground troops to Rafah without a plan to keep Palestinians there out of harm’s way, provide them with basic services and allow more aid, much of it through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt comes in.
In northern Gaza, fighting continued on Tuesday around the area’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa. The Israeli military said its forces were “continuing precise operations” in the sprawling complex. It said it had killed dozens of militants, although its account of the fighting could not be independently verified.
The Gaza Ministry of Health has condemned the raid as a “crime against health institutions,” and humanitarian organizations have expressed concern about the situation in the complex. The hospital, together with the surrounding area, housed 30,000 patients, medical staff and displaced civilians.
Israel has said the hospital complex served as a secret military command center for Hamas, calling it one of many examples of civilian facilities used by Hamas to protect its activities. Hospital administrators have denied the claim.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a social media post on Monday that the Israeli raid “put health workers, patients and citizens at risk.”
“Hospitals should never be a battlefield,” he said.
Reporting was contributed by Matthew Mpoke Bigg, Nick Cumming-Bruce, Aaron Bokserman And Gabby Sobelman.