The United States has issued its strongest public warning yet to Israel against invading the crowded city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, saying that such a ground operation would deepen the humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave. Many world leaders and United Nations experts have openly opposed any operation in Rafah, warning of mass casualties.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday that, while President Joe Biden remains committed to the goal of defeating Hamas, he communicated to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that a major assault on Rafah would be a “mistake”.
According to Sullivan, Biden asked Netanyahu in a phone call to send a team of intelligence and military officials to Washington to hear concerns about any potential invasion of Rafah.
Sullivan said it was “first and foremost” Israel’s obligation “to step up and ensure that more is done to deliver food to starving people in northern Gaza”, in the wake of a warning from UN organisations that famine was “imminent” in northern Gaza, with an onset at any time between mid-March and May.
Administration officials made clear that Israel would bear primary responsibility if a famine was allowed to happen.
“It would lead to more innocent civilian deaths, worsen the already dire humanitarian crisis, deepen the anarchy in Gaza and further isolate Israel Internationally,” Sullivan said.
The Israeli military has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians in Gaza since the start of the war on October 7, following a deadly attack on southern Israel that killed at least 1,100 people.
Last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in Biden’s Democratic Party, described Netanyahu as an obstacle to peace and called for new elections in Israel “once the war starts to wind down”.
