Israeli officials to meet in wake of Biden threat to halt some US military aid (2024)

Israeli war and security cabinets are set to convene Thursday evening, after US President Joe Biden said he would stop shipments of some US weapons if Israel launches a full-scale ground attack in the city of Rafah, two Israeli officials told CNN.

Biden’s threat to stop some military aid will be a key topic of discussion, the officials said. The war cabinet will review assessments of remaining Israeli munitions, plans to manage them going forward and the future of Israeli military attacks.

There is no sense at the moment that Biden’s threat will dissuade the Israeli government from expanding military attacks in Rafah, with Israeli officials publicly and privately expressing defiance and anger at what they view as the US abandoning Israel at a critical moment in the war.

Human rights warnings: Israel's intensified campaign in Rafah has displaced at least 80,000 Palestinians, according to the UN's agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA).

"The toll on these families is unbearable. Nowhere is safe," UNRWA posted on X, on Thursday. It came after UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah would be "intolerable," reiterating calls for a ceasefire deal and the release of hostages taken by Hamas.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned on Thursday that Israeli forces “cannot be subdued,” shortly after US President Joe Biden told CNN that Washington would not give arms for an Israeli invasion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

“I turn to Israel’s enemies as well as to our best of friends and say -- the State of Israel cannot be subdued, not the IDF, not the defense establishment," Gallant said at a memorial ceremony on Thursday.

"We will stand strong, we will achieve our goals -- we will hit Hamas, we will hit Hezbollah, and we will achieve security," he added.

“We have no choice, we have no other country. We will do whatever is necessary, and I repeat -- whatever is necessary, in order to defend the citizens of Israel, to remove the evil threats against us, and to stand up to those who attempt to destroy us,” he added.

Israeli invasion into Rafah: Gallant's remarks come after Biden threatened to halt some shipments of American weapons to Israel if the Israeli military were to launch a full-scale attack on Rafah -- where more than 1 million Palestinians were forced to flee from Israel's bombardment, according to the UN. Streams of Gazans were uprooted yet again on Monday, when Israeli forces issued a relocation order before intensifying deadly strikes on Rafah.

CIADirector Bill Burns is flying back to Washington after spending most of the past week crisscrossing the Middle East to try to finalize a ceasefire deal in Gaza, a source familiar with his meetings told CNN.

American officials have been sounding optimistic this week about the prospects for a ceasefire and hostage deal, though it appears that significant gaps remain.

Burns left Cairo on Thursday, after arriving in the Egyptian capital late last week. Representatives from mediating countries, as well as Israel and Hamas, have taken part in negotiations in there. Hamas also announced Thursday that their delegation was leaving Cairo to go to Doha in Qatar.

Burns had traveled to Israel on Wednesday for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad Director David Barnea. Over the weekend he was in Doha to meet with Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani.

The limp body of a child was among the three people killed in eastern Rafah who were brought to the Kuwait Specialized Hospital on Thursday.

The Israel Defense Forces warned people in parts of eastern Gaza to evacuate on Monday.

A local journalist working for CNN saw the dead wrapped in body bags at the last remaining functional hospital in Rafah, with family members of the dead seen crying over the bodies of their loved ones.

Medical personnel were also seen treating the injured, with the hospital warning that they were not equipped to deal with the increasing number of casualties.

The local journalist said there was non-stop Israeli artillery shelling overnight in eastern Rafah, with social media video showing the streets in some neighborhoods completely abandoned.

This post has been updated with additional developments.

Israeli politicians exchanged pointed political jibes with each other on Thursday morning in reaction to US President Joe Biden's announcement on CNN that the US will halt its supply of arms to Israel if a ground incursion is launched into Rafah.

Israel's Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, condemned the move in apost on X, saying: "Hamas ❤️ Biden".

Shortly after, President Isaac Herzog warned against "baseless, irresponsible and insulting statements and tweets" during a VE day anniversary speech.

Yair Lapid, from the centristYesh Atid party, responded that "If Netanyahu does not fire Ben Gvir today, he is endangering every soldier in the IDF and every citizen in the State of Israel."

The leader of the Labor Party, Merav Michaeli, also said in response that "Netanyahu and his government continue to make Israel's strategic situation worse." Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said, "Israel will continue to fight Hamas until it is destroyed. There is no more just war than this," in a statement on X.

Minister of Culture and Sport, Miki Zohar, from the Likud party said, "It is amazing to discover that the world has forgotten what happened in Israel on October 7", in a post on X on Thursday."We will not compromise our security, and we will never agree to submit to any demands that harm Israel's national security," he added.

The Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza from Israel is closed for a fourth consecutive day, according to the spokesperson for the enclave's Crossings Authority.

There are conflicting reports on the status of the crossing, which Israel closed after it was hit by at least 10 rockets on Sunday, killing four Israeli soldiers, according to Israel's military.

The crossing has been central togetting aid into Gaza.

On Wednesday, Israel’s coordinating authority for the Palestinian territories said the crossing had re-opened for the entry of humanitarian aid. But the Palestinian Border Crossings Commission denied Israel's claims, saying no trucks had crossed.

Hisham Adwan, spokesperson for the Gaza Crossings Authority, said Thursday it was not true that the crossing had reopened on Wednesday and that the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) had not even attempted to go to the crossing.

A halt in weapons shipments from the US may "significantly impair" Israel's ability to "achieve military objectives," the Israeli ambassador to the UN said Thursday.

Gilad Erdan was responding to President Joe Biden's statement Wednesday that he wouldhalt some shipments of US weapons to Israelif Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a major invasion of the Gazan city of Rafah.

Erdan told Israel's public broadcaster Kan 11 that Biden's decision "may be preventing Israel or at least significantly harming Israel's ability to achieve one of the main goals of this war, which is the overthrow of the Hamas government."

Biden acknowledged Wednesday that American weapons had been used to kill civilians in Gaza — a stark recognition of the US role in the war.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday the US is pausing the shipment of "high-payload munitions" due to Israel's possible operations in Rafah without a plan for the civilians there.

The UN’s main relief agency in Gaza (UNRWA)estimates that nearly 79,000 people have fled the southern city of Rafah since Monday as an Israeli offensive in the city expands.

"Rafah today: now daily scene of forcibly displaced families fleeing area," the agency's communications officer Louise Wateridge wrote on X on Thursday.

Wateridge said there is "extreme fear from significant bombardment in Rafah overnight and continuing throughout this morning."

Some context: Palestinians in parts of eastern Rafah were told to evacuate on Monday by the Israeli military as it launched an offensive in the city. Israel’s attack in Rafah has since expanded from airstrikes to ground operations, satellite images obtained by CNN from Planet Labs show.

Rafah is "hanging on theedge of a precipice" and those left in the southern Gazan city, including 600,000 children, are the most vulnerable and living in "shocking" conditions, according to an official with the United Nations Children's Fund in Rafah.

Young said that malnutrition rates in Rafah are increasing, and children are "in real trouble" after the closure of one of the main hospitals in the city "greatly reducedthe ability for children to reachmedical services."

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that hospitals in southernGazaonly have three days offuelleft, "which means services may soon come to a halt."

"We’rerationing the fuel already forhospitals, scaling downoperations as we can. When thatfuel runs out, life supportsystems in hospitals stop."

If the generators stop running, patients on ventilators and children relying on incubators are at extreme risk, he said.

"People onventilators, I don't know whathappens to them when theventilator stops running.Children in incubators, littletiny babies, often it's two andthree jammed into one incubatorbecause we haven't been able tobring enough in," Young said.