Israel rejects US request to stop Rafah offensive

76

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken returned from the Middle East once again empty-handed on Friday, as the Israeli prime minister rejected U.S. calls to suspend the promised ground invasion of the city. Gaza Strip of Rafah, which is overcrowded with displaced civilians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tough message raises expectations of potentially difficult talks next week in Washington between senior US officials and a high-level Israeli delegation. Netanyahu said Israel is willing to “go it alone” in Rafah if necessary. Despite their differences, the Biden administration has not stopped providing military aid and diplomatic support to Israel, even as the war in the Palestinian territory has killed more than 32,000 people and generated a worsening humanitarian crisis.

Israel claims that Rafah is Hamas’s last stronghold and that the militia must be defeated for Israel to meet its war goals. Israel vowed to destroy Hamas following the group’s Oct. 7 attack, which killed nearly 1,200 people and took 250 captive, and sparked Israel’s fierce ground and air offensive against Gaza.

But Rafah currently shelters more than 1 million homeless Palestinians who fled war in other parts of Gaza. The United States, along with much of the international community, fears that an Israeli ground invasion would endanger civilian lives and impede the flow of humanitarian aid into the territory, which arrives through Rafah.

Netanyahu said he told Blinken that Israel is working on ways to remove civilians from combat zones and address the humanitarian needs of Gaza, where, according to international aid officials, the entire population is food insecure, in addition to Famine is imminent in the north of the region.

“I also said that there is no way to defeat Hamas without entering Rafah,” Netanyahu said. “I told him I hope we can do it with the support of the United States, but if necessary, we will do it on our own.”

Concluding his sixth visit to the Middle East since the start of the war, Blinken told reporters that the United States shares Israel’s goal of defeating Hamas.

“But a major ground operation in Rafah is not, in our view, the way to achieve this, and we were very clear about that,” he said, adding that Israel faces increasing isolation if it goes ahead.

The impending invasion of Rafah casts a shadow over ongoing efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. Blinken, who also met with Arab leaders on his trip this week, acknowledged that “there is still a lot of work to do.”

Blinken spoke shortly after a US-backed ceasefire resolution in the UN Security Council was vetoed by Russia and China. Blinken said it was “unimaginable” that such a measure would have been rejected.