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Israel says Biden threat to stop arms 'very disappointing'
Two top Israeli officials criticised US president Joe Biden on Thursday for threatening to stop certain arms supplies to Israel if it invades Rafah, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“This is a difficult and very disappointing statement to hear from a president to whom we have been grateful since the beginning of the war,” Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said on public radio in Israel’s first reaction to Biden’s warning.
Israel has defied international objections by sending in tanks and conducting “targeted raids” in the eastern areas of Rafah. It says Rafah is home to Hamas’s last remaining battalions but the city on the border with Egypt is also crammed with displaced Palestinian civilians.
“If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used … to deal with the cities,” Biden told CNN, in his starkest warning to Israel since the start of the war.
“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs,” Biden said. “It’s just wrong.”
According to AFP, Erdan said Biden’s comments would be interpreted by Israel’s foes Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah as “something that gives them hope to succeed”.
“If Israel is restricted from entering an area as important and central as Rafah where there are thousands of terrorists, hostages and leaders of Hamas, how exactly are we supposed to achieve our goals?” he said.
“This is not a defensive weapon. This is about certain offensive bombs. In the end the State of Israel will have to do what it thinks needs to be done for the security of its citizens.”
Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said his government would pursue its goals in Gaza despite the US threat.
“We will achieve complete victory in this war despite President Biden’s push back and arms embargo,” he said in a statement.
“We must continue the war until Hamas is totally eliminated and our hostages are back home. This involves conquering Rafah completely and the sooner the better.”
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US threat to stop weapons shipments 'frustrating', says Israel's ambassador to the UN
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, in an interview with Israeli Channel 12 TV news, said the US’ warning it could pause some weapons shipments was “a very disappointing decision, even frustrating.” He suggested the move stemmed from political pressure on US president Joe Biden from Congress, the US campus protests and the upcoming election, reports the Associated Press (AP).
The decision also drew a sharp rebuke from House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who said they only learned about the military aid holdup from press reports, despite assurances from the Biden administration that no such pauses were in the works. According to the AP, the Republicans called on Biden in a letter to swiftly end the blockage, saying it “risks emboldening Israel’s enemies,” and to brief lawmakers on the nature of the policy reviews.
“If we stop weapons necessary to destroy the enemies of the state of Israel at a time of great peril, we will pay a price,” said Republican senator Lindsey Graham. “This is obscene. It is absurd. Give Israel what they need to fight the war they can’t afford to lose.”
However, independent senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a Biden ally, said in a statement the pause on big bombs must be a “first step.”
“Our leverage is clear,” Sanders said. “Over the years, the United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel. We can no longer be complicit in Netanyahu’s horrific war against the Palestinian people.”
Jennifer Rankin
Ireland, Spain and other EU countries could recognise Palestine as an independent state as soon as 21 May, Ireland’s public broadcaster has reported.
Two sources told RTÉ the date was being looked at.
Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and Malta issued a joint statement in March declaring they were ready to recognise Palestinian statehood when “the circumstances are right”.
The Guardian has contacted Ireland’s foreign ministry for comment.
The report comes as EU leaders come under growing pressure to respond to Israel’s operation in Rafah.
At least 67 MEPs have signed a letter urging EU leaders to convene “an urgent meeting … to discuss the EU response to the events in Rafah”. The MEPs – Greens, Socialists, radical left and a few liberals and centre right members – call for EU sanctions against Israel, as “the only adequate response to this horrendous and reckless military campaign in Rafah and the rest of the Gaza Strip”.
EU governments, who have the power to impose sanctions by unanimity, are highly unlikely to impose sweeping sanctions against Israel, but the letter is a testament to the strength of feeling on the left of the parliament.
The EU imposed sanctions on “extremist” settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem in April.
Meanwhile Belgium is pushing to ban imports from territories occupied by Israel, but such a plan is highly unlikely to be supported by Germany, Austria and Hungary, strong supporters of Israel’s right to self-defence.
Here are some of the latest images on the newswires:
Israeli strikes on Syria early on Thursday targeted facilities belonging to Iraq’s al-Nujaba armed movement, a war monitor and the pro-Iran group said, with Damascus saying an unidentified building was attacked.
According to AFP, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “Israeli airstrikes targeted a cultural centre” and a “training facility” of the Iraqi al-Nujaba movement in the Sayyida Zeinab area south of Damascus.
Three members of the group were wounded according to the UK-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.
AFP reports that a source within the Iraqi faction, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media, confirmed that a “cultural centre” belonging to the group was destroyed in the “Israeli” attack, but reported no casualties. Al-Nujaba does “not have a declared military base in Syria”, the source added.
According to AFP, Syria’s defence ministry said that “at around 3.20 am today, the Israeli enemy launched an air attack from the direction of the occupied Syria Golan Heights targeting a building in the Damascus countryside”.
The attack caused “some material damage”, said the statement carried by state media, adding that air defence systems shot down some of the missiles.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes on Syria, but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence there.
An Israeli airstrike on a car in southern Lebanon killed four people on Thursday, according to Lebanon’s civil defence, with security sources saying those killed were members of armed group Hezbollah.
According to Reuters, the Israeli military did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Thursday’s strikes.
Lebanon’s civil defence rescue force said it had pulled four bodies out of a car that had been scorched by an Israeli strike. Two security sources told Reuters the four killed were members of Hezbollah.
At least 34,904 Palestinians have been killed and 78,514 injured in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza since 7 October, Gaza’s health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
The Hamas-run health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
Ship carrying aid to US-built pier off Gaza leaves Cyprus
A vessel carrying aid to a pier built by the US off Gaza set sail from Cyprus on Thursday, marine tracking websites showed, according to Reuters.
The US flagged Sagamore left the port of Larnaca on Thursday morning. US officials have said the vessel will be used to offload supplies on to a floating pier built to expedite aid into Gaza.
Reuters reports that there was no immediate comment from Cypriot authorities, which had earlier said the ship would sail as soon as the floating platform was in place, subject to weather conditions.
An emergency doctor working in Rafah and nearby Khan Younis told AFP that with humanitarian access compromised, the health situation was “catastrophic”.
“The smell of sewage is rife everywhere,” said the doctor, James Smith. “It’s been getting worse over the course of the last couple of days.”
World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that hospitals in southern Gaza had only “three days of fuel left” because of the border closures.
“Without fuel all humanitarian operations will stop,” he said.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists reported heavy shelling in Rafah early on Thursday. According to AFP, the Israeli military later said it was also striking “Hamas positions” farther north in the centre of the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s former head of defence production and procurement on Thursday rejected the claim the country could manage without US arms, saying Israel would be forced to source arms elsewhere, reports Reuters citing Israeli public radio.
