“Let’s do it ourselves.” Israel does not stop, the military operation in Gaza is destined to continue and Rafah remains in the crosshairs, even if the United States will no longer send weapons. ”If we have to be alone, we will be alone,” but ”we will fight tooth and nail” because ”we are determined and we are united to defeat our enemies and those who want to harm us,” he said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the video message released on ‘X’ in view of Independence Day which is celebrated on May 14, ”75 years ago. We were few against many”. While ”today we are much stronger”, continued the Israeli prime minister.
The position taken by the President of the United States, Joe Biden, does not appear to affect Israel’s programs. The American president said Washington would no longer send weapons to Israel if the operation in Rafah, where about 1.5 million Palestinians are taking refuge, took place. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have ”sufficient weapons for the planned missions, including for Rafah”, explained IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari. ”The IDF has weapons for the missions they are planning, and also for the missions in Rafah. We have what we need,” he told her.
Hagari then underlined that ”the United States has so far provided security assistance to the State of Israel and the IDF during the war in an unprecedented way”. Furthermore, the IDF chief of staff, General Herzi Halevi, speaks every day with the head of Centcom USA, General Michael Erik Kurilla. ”Even when there are disagreements between us, we resolve them behind closed doors,” Hagari said.
Israel-Hamas negotiations, yet another black smoke
The operation in Rafah appears closer after yet another black smoke in the last round of talks in Cairo. Israeli officials, quoted by Channel 12, referred to “irreconcilable differences” with Hamas, while their respective delegations left the Egyptian capital and the director of the CIA, William Burns, also returned to the United States.
Israel is asking to exclude Rafah from a potential deal, NBC reported, citing four American officials and a former one familiar with the talks. According to sources, the Netanyahu government refuses to accept an agreement unless it can go ahead with military operations in Rafah, even in the case of a truce.
Pressure from the White House
The White House, meanwhile, continues to pressure Netanyahu. “Destroying Rafah will not achieve Washington and Tel Aviv’s goal of defeating Hamas in Gaza,” said John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House, explaining that the United States has proposed to Israel ” different methods to put pressure on Hamas”. That is, ”there are better ways to defeat what remains of Hamas in Rafah than a major ground operation”.
President Biden and his team “have been clear for several weeks that we do not support a major ground operation in Rafah, where more than a million people are taking refuge without a safe place to go,” Kirby added, highlighting the need to provide help to the population. “We want all humanitarian assistance to continue to pass through the Rafah crossing and all other crossings as soon as possible,” he said again. The United States, she explained, asked the Israelis to reopen the crossing and they accepted, but without providing a timeframe.
For two days no aid has entered from the crossings with the south of the Gaza Strip, as said by the director for Palestine of the World Food Program (WFP), Matthew Hollingworth, explaining that ”our main warehouse is not accessible. No help has entered through the southern crossings in two days”. Posting on ‘X’, Hollingworth explained that ”only one bakery is still operating. Food and fuel supplies to Gaza will only last 1-3 days. After that, our operations will stop”.
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