Israel lacks a viable military strategy to eliminate Hamas in Rafah, US President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as he warned him not to act without approval from Washington in a stern phone call on Monday.
“You need a strategy that works,” Biden told Netanyahu, according to the version of the conversation US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan relaid to reporters.
“That strategy should not involve a major military operation that puts thousands and thousands of lives, civilian innocent lives, at risk in Rafah,” Biden said.
‘I want you to understand, Mr. Prime Minister, exactly where I am on this.
“I am for the defeat of Hamas. I believe that they are an evil terrorist group with not just Israeli, but American blood on their hands,” Biden said.
The president cautioned, however, that “there is a better way” than the strategy than the one Israel has outlined.
Netanyahu agrees to send delegation to Washington
During the call, Netanyahu agreed to send a senior interagency team composed of military intelligence and humanitarian officials to Washington in the coming days to hear US concerns about Israel’s current Rafah military plans, Sullivan said.
The US wants Israel in those talks to agree to an “alternative approach that would target key Hamas elements in Rafah and secure the Egypt-Gaza border against arms smuggling without a major IDF ground operation, Sullivan said.
The IDF is expected to refrain from a major military operation in Rafah until the Israeli team returns from Washington, Sullivan stated.
He dismissed as a false equivalency Netanyahu’s claims that demands for Israel to refrain from a Rafah operation was tantamount to asking Israel to lose the war.
“That’s nonsense,” Sullivan said. “There are ways for Israel to prevail in this conflict... and not smash into Rafah.”
The United States shares the IDF’s goal of defeating Hamas, it just believes that Israel “needs a coherent and sustainable strategy to make that happen.”
Biden told Netanyahu, “Send your team to Washington. Let’s talk about it. We’ll lay out for you what we believe for you is a better way,” Sullivan said.
During the call, Biden affirmed his “bone-deep commitment to ensuring the long-term security of Israel” as well as Israel’s right to destroy Hamas, but Israel has yet to present a viable protection plan for civilians, Sullivan said.
He added that Rafah remains a major entry point for goods into Gaza and a military operation would complicate that delivery, deepening the humanitarian crisis.
Egypt has “voiced its deep alarm over a major military operation there and has even raised questions about its future relationship with Israel as a result of any impending military operation,” Sullivan said.
A major military operation would lead to more deaths, worsen the humanitarian crisis, deepen anarchy in Gaza, and further “isolate Israel internationally,” Sullivan stated.
The call was “very businesslike,” Sullivan said. Both leaders recognize that “we are at a critical moment in this conflict.”
His words were among the harshest the Biden administration has issued against Israeli actions in Gaza and on Rafah in particular.
It comes amid rising tensions between Netanyahu and Biden. In the last few days, Netanyahu gave interviews to Fox and CNN to lay out his arguments for a Rafah operation.
Netanyahu made a similar argument in Jerusalem on Monday when he spoke to a delegation from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee about Rafah. The southern Gaza area hosts over 1.3 million Palestinians, many of whom fled there to escape bombing in the northern part of the enclave.
Netanyahu stressed that the IDF would ensure that Palestinians in Rafah would be moved to safety before any military operation.
“We can move them,” Netanyahu said.
Palestinians would not return to the north at this stage, but will be moved more to the center of the Strip, he said.
“There is 65% of the Gaza Strip between Rafah and the Central Corridor,” he said, emphasizing that Israel was not “going to trap a million people... it’s not true. It’s salacious.”
It’s “a flimsy excuse. They will leave. We will make sure they have someplace to go,” he said.
Those who urge Israel not to enter Rafah are essentially calling on Israel not to win the war, he stated.
Netanyahu emphasized that he had drawn up a humanitarian plan that would be implemented before any military operation.
All the plans that involve the entry and distribution of humanitarian goods into Gaza have involved Israel, he said, explaining that he included the airdrop, the sea route from Cyprus, and the land crossings.
Netanyahu said he had spoken with Biden about a sea route in the first weeks of the war, but that the main issue was distribution.
“The problem is how do you prevent looting by Hamas and others so that it gets to the civilian population,” he said.
Netanyahu also addressed the political attacks against him, ministers in his government, and the IDF’s policies in Gaza that have come out of Washington in the last week, including by Biden and by Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York).
The majority of the Israeli public supports his policies, Netanyahu said, and for those who doubt that just walk into any mall or speak to people in the street.
But statements out of Washington have painted a picture charging that “you have an outlier prime minister with [a government] with some extreme fringe groups and that is what is driving the policy,” he said.
“That is false, deliberately false,” he empathized, adding in the past he has explained this to Biden.
“They [the US] keep saying that local politics is interfering with us.
“They may be right, but on which side of the pond,” Netanyahu added.
Sullivan told reporters in Washington that Netanyahu’s comments were ironic given that “you have the prime minister speaking on American television about his concerns about Americans interfering in Israeli politics,” Sullivan said
He said that “we don’t do nearly as much as they speak into ours.”