'We will fight with our fingernails': Netanyahu hits back at Biden's threat to halt weapons
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country can "stand alone" after the US warned it could halt arms shipments if Israel ordered a full-scale invasion of Rafah in Gaza.
"If we need to ... we will stand alone. I have said that if necessary we will fight with our fingernails," he said on Thursday.
President Joe Biden has urged Israel not to go ahead with such an operation over fears it would exacerbate the humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian enclave.
On Wednesday, he said the United States would not provide offensive weapons for a Rafah offensive, raising pressure on Netanyahu.
“If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, that deal with that problem,” Biden said in a CNN interview.
Israel’s top military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, also appeared to downplay the practical impact of any arms holdup.
“The army has munitions for the missions it plans, and for the missions in Rafah, too - we have what we need,” he said in response to a question at a news conference.
Israel has repeatedly threatened to invade Rafah, where some 1.3 million Palestinians - over half the population - have sought refuge. The city in southern Gaza is also the main hub for humanitarian operations, which have been severely hindered by the closure
Israel says Rafah is the last stronghold of Hamas and that the army must go in if it hopes to dismantle the group and return scores of hostages captured in the October 7 attack that triggered the war.
Aid groups say a Rafah invasion would be catastrophic. The U.N. says most of the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians suffer from hunger and that northern Gaza is already experiencing “full-blown famine.”
Even the limited operation Israel launched earlier this week, in which a tank brigade captured the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, has thrown humanitarian operations into crisis.
It also complicated what had been months of efforts by the US Qatar and Egypt to broker a cease-fire and the release of hostages. Hamas this week said it had accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, but Israel says the plan does not meet its “core” demands.
Several days of follow-up talks appeared to end inconclusively on Thursday.
The war began with Hamas’ surprise attack into southern Israel, in which it killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 250 hostage.
The militants are still holding some 100 captives and the remains of more than 30 after most of the rest were released during a cease-fire last year.
The war has killed over 34,800 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Israel’s offensive, waged with US-supplied munitions, has caused widespread devastation and forced some 80% of Gaza’s population to flee their homes.
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