Some experts say that even Biden’s ‘red lines’ will neither change Israeli tactics nor will it compel Washington to end its military support for the Israeli genocide.
The US Biden Administration supports Israel’s plan to invade the Palestinian city of Rafah. However, Washington is merely “grappling with what kind of Israeli military operation it can accept” in the southern Gaza Strip city, Politico reported.
“Senior U.S. officials have told their Israeli counterparts the Biden administration would support Israel going after high-value Hamas targets in and underneath Rafah – as long as Israel avoids a large-scale invasion that could fracture the alliance,” the news website reported on Wednesday, based on information it obtained from US and Israeli sources.
Over the weekend, Biden reportedly drew “red lines”, which allow Israel to invade Rafah on condition that it does not pursue its campaign “without credible civilian protection plans in place.”
Thus far Israel has killed over 31,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children. Nearly 7,000 Palestinians have been missing, presumed dead and over 73 thousand were wounded.
Israel has used mostly US weapons in its deadly war on the Palestinians. While US mainstream news media frequently reported on a rift between President Joe Biden and the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu, the US continued to ship weapons to Israel, estimated, by the Washington Post, to be over 100 large shipments since the start of the war.
The US is yet to condition its support of Israel on the latter’s ending of its civilian onslaught. Some experts say that even Biden’s ‘red lines’ will neither change Israeli tactics nor will it compel Washington to end its military support for the Israeli genocide.
‘Counterterrorism’
“In private conversations, top administration officials have signaled to Israel that they could support a plan more akin to counterterrorism operations than all-out war,” Politico, citing four US officials, reported. Israel, however, is yet to produce any plans.
Such a plan, “the administration officials argue, would minimize civilian casualties, decimate Hamas’ ranks and avoid scenes that have led to souring public opinion on Israel’s campaign and Biden’s handling of the war.”
Washington, however, has urged Israel to carry out such ‘surgical operations’ against the Gaza Strip since the start of the war.
This time, however, US officials say that the situation is different, and that the administration “would consider conditioning some future military aid to Israel if there was a major campaign in Rafah.”
Netanyahu has repeatedly declared that Israel’s ‘victory’ in Gaza, hinges on the invasion of Rafah. An Israeli official told Politico that there’s no question that at some point Israeli forces would launch some kind of operation.
“At the end of the day, we cannot win this war without defeating Hamas’ battalions in Rafah,” he said.
It is unclear why Rafah, initially declared as a safe zone for displaced Palestinians, became the battle that would make or break Israel’s definition of victory in Gaza.
Meanwhile, fighting is still continuing in all parts of the Strip, including Gaza City, in the north and Khan Younis in the south.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
(The Palestine Chronicle)