WASHINGTON (AP) — Acknowledging only “an uptick” in Israeli military activity, the United States has gone to lengths to avoid any suggestion that Israeli forces have crossed a red line set by President Joe Biden in the deepening offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Critics charge that Biden, who declared early last month that he would not supply offensive weapons if Israel launched an all-out assault on Rafah, has come up against a domestic red line of his own and decided not to cross it: challenging ally Israel, which has support from Republicans and many American voters, in an election year.
Administration officials “keep moving the goalposts when it comes to the Rafah operation, saying, ‘You know, we won’t let the Israelis do X, Y or Z,’” said Colin Clarke, an international security expert and research director at the Soufan Center, a research center. “And then somebody says, ‘Well, aren’t they doing that?’”
“So they’ve been playing semantics around what the Rafah operation constitutes,” he said. “I think if it weren’t an election year, you would see the president being a lot more forceful.”
Administration officials insist Israel has changed its tactics in an effort to reduce civilian deaths as the military sweeps through the city and targets Hamas operatives — even as humanitarian conditions worsen.
Israel launched its war in Gaza after attacks by Hamas killed about 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7.
It was the Israeli operation against Hamas in Rafah that brought on the strongest warnings from Biden last month about how Israel was conducting the war and that the U.S. could cut its supply of offensive weapons. The population of Rafah had swelled to some 1.3 million as Israeli offensives to the north pushed Palestinian civilians south.
“If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons,” Biden told CNN on May 9. He indicated the red line as being an attack on “population centers” in the city.
At about the same time, U.S. officials confirmed that the administration had suspended a shipment of heavy bombs to Israel to ensure they were not dropped on Rafah.
Republicans’ condemnation of Biden’s move was fast and fierce. Soon after, the chief prosecutor for the world’s top war crimes court sought an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the top U.N. court ordered Israel to cease its operations in Rafah, increasing the political pressure on the U.S. and Israel.
Administration warnings and threats to Israel over the Rafah campaign ebbed. Biden, un a White House address Friday to urge Hamas to accept an Israeli proposal for a cease-fire and hostage release, made only a passing mention of the operation there, noting widely circulated images of children killed in an Israeli strike last Sunday.