Israeli warplanes struck Gaza’s crowded southern city of Rafah on Thursday after U.S. President Joe Biden vowed to stop supplying artillery shells and other weapons to Israel if it continues to launch sweeping attacks.
It was the starkest warning yet from the United States, Israel’s main military provider, about the impact on civilians of its war against Hamas.
AFP journalists and witnesses reported on Thursday Israeli attacks on various areas of Rafah, where the United Nations says 1.4 million people have taken refuge.
“Tanks and jets are attacking,” Tariq Balur said on a deserted Rafah street. “Every minute you hear the rocket, but you don’t know where it’s going to land.”
Israel has defied international opposition and sent tanks in what it called “targeted attacks” east of Rafah, which it says is home to Hamas’s last remaining battalion.
Hamas authorities’ “emergency committee” in Rafah dismissed Israel’s description of its operations as “limited” as “nothing more than lies.”
Biden warned in an interview with CNN on Wednesday that he would stop supplying some weapons to Israel if it carries out a long-threatened ground attack.
Israel on Thursday called Biden’s comments “very disappointing.”
“I will not provide weapons to be used against these cities if they come into Rafah,” Biden told CNN.
“We will not provide weapons and shells that have been used.”
– Bomb delivery stopped –
The new warning comes after his government last week suspended the delivery of 1,800 2,000-pound (907-kilogram) bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs as Israel appeared to be preparing to attack Rafah.
“These bombs are killing civilians in Gaza,” Biden said. “It’s just wrong.”
Relations between the allies have become increasingly tense as Biden and other senior Washington officials criticize Israel’s war conduct.
Pro-Palestinian protests have erupted at universities across the United States with an intensity not seen in decades.
The Gaza war began with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, which killed more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants seized about 250 hostages during the October attack, of which Israel estimates 128 remain in Gaza and 36 are officially dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,904 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-controlled region’s health ministry.
– Aid operations “paralyzed” –
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said 80,000 people had fled Rafah since Monday but “no place is safe”.
On Tuesday, Israel seized the Rafah crossing into Egypt, the main entry point for aid.
The White House condemned the aid disruption, and the defense secretary later confirmed that Washington had suspended bomb shipments.
Israel’s first reaction to Biden’s threat was that Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, called it a “very disappointing statement.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not directly mention the U.S. threat but said in a statement: “If we must stand alone, we will stand alone.”
He has repeated those words in recent days as international and domestic criticism of his handling of the war has intensified.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday it would reopen another aid crossing into Gaza, Kerem Shalom, as well as the Erez crossing into northern Gaza.
But Andrea de Domenico, head of the U.N. humanitarian office in the Palestinian territories, told AFP that military activity in Kerem Shalom had made civilian aid delivery nearly impossible.
He said the closure of the Rafah crossing, the only one equipped with fuel transport facilities, had effectively halted aid operations.
He said there were “no” fuel stocks in Gaza. This “means no action. This completely undermines humanitarian action.”
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini announced late Thursday that the agency would close its East Jerusalem headquarters due to a recent series of attacks by “Israeli extremists” that put its staff at “grave risk.”
Lazzarini said the compound would remain closed “until appropriate security is restored.”
– US aid ship sets sail for Gaza –
A U.S. container ship carrying aid to Gaza left Cyprus on Thursday, the Cypriot government said, in a new test of a maritime corridor to deliver relief to the besieged Palestinian territory.
U.S. military engineers have been building a temporary dock to unload aid, but the work has been delayed due to rough seas.
Cypriot government spokesman Yiannis Antoniou said: “The platform is expected to be ready upon the ship’s arrival so that aid can be offloaded and distributed to Palestinians in need.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the terminal would “significantly increase” the amount of aid arriving in Gaza, but said it was not a “replacement” for more land access through Israel.
Hamas called for an end to airdrops of aid after a rescue pallet crashed into a warehouse on Thursday, killing two Palestinians after a parachute failed to open.
According to Hamas authorities, problems occurred during airdrops by Arab and Western air forces in Gaza, resulting in at least 21 deaths.
Israeli and Hamas negotiating teams left Cairo on Thursday for what their Egyptian hosts said were “two days” of indirect talks on the terms of a truce in Gaza, Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera News reported.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that the head of the U.S. delegation and CIA Director Bill Burns has also left for home.
“That doesn’t mean there aren’t still ongoing discussions,” Kirby said.
“We continue to believe there is a way forward, but it will require some leadership from both sides.”
In a makeshift refugee camp in Rafah, Mazen Shami says she’s had enough.
“We don’t have the money and the means to move from one place to another again and again. We have no means at all,” Shami said.