Israeli far-right attacks Biden over Gaza war stance as Netanyahu vows Rafah offensive will happen

Tel Aviv — Some of Israel’s top far-right politicians lashed out at President Biden on Thursday after he warned the White House could hold back more arms deliveries to the Israeli army if it launches a major ground military attack against the southernmost town of Rafah in Gaza.

The ultranationalist and inflammatory Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir posted a short message on social media, suggesting, with a heart emoji, that the militant group Hamas, with which Israel has been at war for seven devastating months in Gaza, liked Mr. Biden for his threat to withdraw weapons.

Parliamentarian Dan Illouz, a member of Parliament for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, said The American leader’s action “endangers not only Israel but the entire free world.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog, considered a more moderate politician, who is not a member of the Netanyahu’s far-right coalition government, appeared to reprimand his most extremist colleagues on Thursday. Speaking at an event marking the Allied victory in Europe over Nazi Germany in World War II, Herzog praised Israel’s “greatest ally, the United States of America,” thanking Mr. .Biden for his support “from the first day of the war”. “.

“Even when there are disagreements and moments of disappointment among friends and allies, there is a way to clarify differences and it is the duty of all of us to avoid baseless, irresponsible and insulting statements and tweets that cause harm national security and the interests of the State of Israel,” Herzog added.

Speaking to CNN on Wednesday, Biden said it would be “simply wrong” if US-supplied weapons were used in attacks that resulted in mass civilian deaths during a ground offensive in large scale in Rafah. If Israel undertakes such an operation, he said the United States “would not provide the weapons and artillery shells used” for the operation.

US officials confirmed that the Biden administration last week suspended a weapons shipment to Israel – of 1,800 one-ton bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs – over fears that the Israel Defense Forces would drop on Rafah.

The southern Gaza city is one of the most densely populated places on the planet, with around 1.4 million Palestinians seeking refuge across the decimated territory.

The Israeli army ordered residents of the eastern part of the city to leave this week, triggering a desperate exodus of thousands of people – many of whom had already been forced to flee other places several times.

FDI the tanks arrived to take control on the Gaza side of the crucial Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Tuesday, shortly after the evacuation order, and Israel said it was carrying out “a precise counterterrorism operation to eliminate Hamas terrorists and infrastructure” in the region.

“They’re not going to get our support if they go into these population centers,” Mr. Biden said. “We are not walking away from Israel’s security, we are walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in these areas.”

Mr. Biden stressed that the United States would “continue to ensure that Israel is secure with respect to Iron Dome and its ability to respond to recent attacks from the Middle East.”

Netanyahu said in recent days – amid growing pressure from the United States and other global partners to limit the scope of operations in Rafah – that if “Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will be alone.”

He pledged to continue Operation Rafah, which he has said for weeks is necessary to destroy the hundreds of Hamas fighters holed up in the city. Rafah is considered the last bastion of the group that ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, before sparking the current war with its deadly October 7 terrorist attack on Israel.

Israel says Hamas killed around 1,200 people in the attack and took some 240 others hostage. About 100 of those captives are believed to be still alive in Gaza, including five U.S. nationals.

The enclave’s health ministry, run by Hamas, says Israel’s war of retaliation has killed nearly 35,000 people. Gaza officials do not distinguish between combatant and civilian casualties, and the IDF, without providing evidence, claims to have killed around 10,000 terrorists in its response to the October 7 attack.

Since Israel announced the start of its operations in Rafah this week, frightened Gazans have fled Israeli airstrikes every day, flooding the city’s last functioning hospital, the Kuwaiti Hospital, with dead and wounded.

“The health situation in Rafah is now very miserable,” Dr. Jamal Al-Humss, the hospital’s general director, told CBS News. He said about 300,000 people in Rafah now rely on the facility, which he said is overwhelmed and understaffed.

In the last days, Hamas – long considered a terrorist group by the United States and Israel – has continued to launch rocket and mortar attacks from Rafah. On Sunday, a strike killed four Israeli soldiers.

Israeli national security expert Chuck Freilich, of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, admits that there are probably still four Hamas battalions operating in Rafah. But speaking to CBS News on Thursday, he claimed Israel had already won And lost the war against Hamas.

“If you look at it from a purely military perspective, I think Israel won the war by mid-December,” he said. “We had essentially destroyed Hamas as a military force.”

“At the same time, if we talk about the overall strategic picture of the war, Israel may have lost. Its international position is poor, and we are now seeing the emergence of a division with the United States,” Freilich said. “For Hamas, this is an incredible achievement, and for us, this is a very serious problem.”

CBS News’ Tucker Reals contributed to this report.