11-5-2024 (WASHINGTON) In a scathing rebuke, the United States has issued a stunning criticism of Israel’s use of American weapons in the ongoing Gaza conflict, after Israeli forces intensified operations around the southern city of Rafah, where more than a million displaced people have sought refuge.
The United States, Israel’s staunch ally, stated on Friday (May 10) that it is “reasonable to assess” that Israel has employed weapons in ways inconsistent with international humanitarian law during the seven-month war. However, the US stopped short of blocking arms shipments, citing its inability to reach “conclusive findings.”
Tensions between the two allies escalated earlier this week when US President Joe Biden threatened to halt some arms deliveries if Israel proceeded with a full-scale assault on Rafah, as warned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The US has cautioned that the reputational damage Israel will suffer if it storms a city where an estimated 1.4 million civilians are sheltering will far outweigh any potential military gain.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday that Gaza risked an “epic humanitarian disaster” if Israel launched a full-scale ground operation in Rafah, while France urged Israel to cease its operations in the city “without delay.”
Netanyahu has repeatedly asserted that Israel cannot defeat Hamas and eliminate the possibility of the militant group repeating its bloody October 7 attack without sending ground troops into Rafah to search for remaining fighters.
In a defiant tone on Thursday, Netanyahu vowed: “If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone.”
While acknowledging concerns, the White House reiterated its opposition on Friday but stated that it had not observed any major operation yet against the city. “We’re obviously watching it with concern, of course, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say what we’ve seen here in the last 24 hours connotes or indicates a broad, large (or) major ground operation,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
Earlier this week, Israeli ground troops seized eastern areas of Rafah, including the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, but they have yet to enter the city’s main built-up area.
AFP journalists witnessed artillery strikes on the city on Friday, and the Israeli army confirmed that operations were ongoing in the east.
The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, resulting in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,943 people in Gaza, predominantly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Israel’s military operations around Rafah have already had a severe impact on Gaza civilians, UN agencies reported. More than 100,000 people, many of them already displaced from other areas of Gaza, have fled Rafah this week, according to the United Nations.
Many have sought refuge in the city of Khan Yunis, where intense fighting raged earlier this year, or are crammed into shelters along the coast in the central town of Deir al-Balah.
Displaced civilian Malek al-Zaza expressed his despair, saying, “We have found no food and no water in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp. No one is asking about us, no one is looking for us… We only have God looking out for us.”
The Rafah crossing, which Israeli troops closed on Tuesday, is the only one normally used for deliveries of fuel, and the United Nations said the resulting exhaustion of stocks inside Gaza had effectively halted aid agency operations.
COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body responsible for Palestinian civil affairs, said it had delivered 200,000 litres of fuel to Gaza on Friday using a different crossing – the quantity the United Nations says is needed every day to keep aid trucks moving and hospital generators working.
The Israeli army reported that four soldiers were killed on Friday when an “explosive device” detonated near a school in Gaza City, bringing the Israeli military’s losses in the Gaza campaign to 271 since the start of its ground offensive on October 27.
The army also said rocket fire from Gaza had wounded an Israeli civilian in the southern city of Beersheba, marking the first time since December that the city had come under Palestinian rocket attack.
