Netanyahu spurns Biden plea to call off Rafah assault

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spurned a plea from Joe Biden to call off a planned ground assault of Rafah, the last refuge in Gaza for more than a million displaced people, where Israel believes Hamas militants are holed up.

Netanyahu told parliament on Tuesday he had made it “supremely clear” to the US president “that we are determined to complete the elimination of these battalions in Rafah, and there’s no way to do that except by going in on the ground”.

The two leaders spoke by phone on Monday. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington believed that storming Rafah would be a “mistake” and that Israel could achieve its military aims by other means.

US and Israeli officials will likely meet early next week in Washington to discuss Israel’s military operation in Rafah, the White House said on Tuesday, citing deep concern about reports of imminent famine in Gaza.

Jean-Pierre said Biden had asked Netanyahu to send a senior team of military, intelligence and humanitarian officials to Washington for comprehensive discussions in the coming days.

Washington has launched a new diplomatic push for a ceasefire in the nearly six-month-old war to free hostages and bring in food aid to ward off famine in the Palestinian enclave.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a trip to the Middle East in which he would meet senior leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia to “discuss the right architecture for a lasting peace”. Unusually, Blinken made no mention of a stop in Israel itself, and the Israeli foreign ministry said it had received no notification to prepare for one.

In Rafah, dazed survivors walked through the ruins of a home on Tuesday morning, one of several buildings hit in overnight Israeli air strikes that killed 14 people in the city, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been pushed up against the southern border fence with Egypt.

“There’s US support, European support and support of the whole world for Israel, they support them with weapons and planes,” said one mourner outside a hospital morgue, Ibrahim Hasouna.

“They mock us and send four or five airdrops (of aid) just to save their faces.”

The war was triggered when Hamas fighters crossed into Israel on a rampage on October 7, killing 1200 people and capturing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Nearly 32,000 people have been confirmed killed in Israel’s retaliatory onslaught, according to Palestinian health officials.

The international hunger monitor IPC, relied on by the United Nations, said on Monday Gaza’s food shortages had already far surpassed famine levels, and Gazans would soon be dying of hunger at famine-scale rates without a ceasefire.

Israel, which initially let in aid only via two checkpoints on Gaza’s southern edge, denies blame for hunger in the enclave and says it is already opening new routes by land, sea and air.

It says the UN and other aid agencies should do more to bring in food and distribute it. The UN says that is impossible without better access and security, both of which it says are Israel’s responsibility.

“The extent of Israel’s continued restrictions on entry of aid into Gaza, together with the manner in which it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war, which is a war crime,” said UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence.

Ceasefire talks are resuming this week in Qatar after Israel rejected a Hamas counter-proposal last week.

Both sides have been discussing a six-week truce during which about 40 Israeli hostages would be freed in return for hundreds of Palestinian detainees and aid would be rushed into the Gaza Strip.

But Israel says it will negotiate only for a temporary pause in fighting, while Hamas says it will not release hostages without a wider plan to end the war.

Civilian suffering in Gaza has opened a rift between Netanyahu’s right-wing government and Israel’s closest ally Washington under Biden. Last week, Chuck Schumer, leader of Biden’s Democratic Party in the Senate and the highest ranking Jewish elected official in the US, called on Israelis to replace Netanyahu, who, he said, was ruining Israel’s international standing.