Netanyahu says ‘we will do it alone’ if US opposes Rafah assault By Reuters

By Humeyra Pamuk and Nidal al-Mughrabi

TEL AVIV (Reuters) -Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the top U.S. diplomat on Friday that Israel was prepared to “do it alone” if Washington opposes its plans for an assault on Rafah, the Gaza city where more than a million displaced Palestinians are sheltering.

Blinken met one-on-one with Netanyahu during a peace mission to the Middle East at a time of evident strain in U.S.-Israeli relations with little precedent in their 75-year-old alliance.

Netanyahu said he told Blinken he appreciated U.S. support in its fight against Hamas and that Israel recognises it needs to protect civilians. However, he reiterated plans to push into Rafah, against the territory’s southern border fence, where more than a million Gazans have taken refuge in makeshift shelters.

“I also said that we have no way to defeat Hamas without going into Rafah and eliminating the rest of the battalions there. And I told him that I hope we will do it with the support of the U.S., but if we have to – we will do it alone,” he said in a video statement to reporters.

Israel says Rafah is the last bastion for Hamas militants, and that it has a plan to evacuate civilians before an attack. Washington says a ground assault would be a “mistake” and cause too much harm to those displaced there.

The United States, Israel’s closest ally since its founding in 1948, provides billions of dollars a year in military aid and regularly uses its diplomatic clout to protect Israeli interests.

In the latest diplomatic duel at the UN Security Council, Russia and China vetoed a U.S.-proposed resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an Israel-Hamas hostage deal.

The text reflected a toughening of Washington’s stance toward Israel – Washington had earlier in the war been averse to the word “ceasefire” – but Moscow and Beijing said it would still not do enough to restrain Israel.

They support an alternative text that Washington says is not strong enough in pushing Hamas towards ongoing diplomacy. France was also said to be working on an alternative resolution.

In Gaza, Israel claimed on Friday to have killed or captured hundreds of Hamas fighters in a five-day operation at the Al Shifa hospital complex, one of the only medical facilities even partially functioning in the north. Hamas and medical staff deny fighters were present there.

STRAIN IN RELATIONS

A strain in ties between the United States and Israel has become increasingly public, with U.S. President Joe Biden calling Israel’s campaign in Gaza “over the top” and saying it has had too great a toll on civilian lives.

The war was triggered by a raid into southern Israel by Hamas fighters who killed 1,200 and took 253 hostages, by Israeli tallies. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in the subsequent Israeli bombardments, with many more feared dead under the rubble, Gaza health authorities say.

Blinken had said he would push Netanyahu to take urgent steps to allow more aid into the densely-populated enclave, where mass death from famine is imminent, according to the United Nations.

U.S. officials say the number of aid deliveries via land needs to increase fast and that aid needs to be sustained over a long period.

“A hundred percent of the population of Gaza is experiencing severe levels of acute food insecurity. We cannot, we must not allow that to continue,” Blinken told a news conference late on Thursday.

Israel, which inspects all shipments to Gaza and has sealed off the fence on the north of the enclave, denies restricting food and says it believes enough is getting through.

“As much as we know, by our analysis, there is no starvation in Gaza. There is a sufficient amount of food entering Gaza every day,” Colonel Moshe Tetro, head of Israel’s Coordination and Liasion Administration for Gaza, told reporters.

AIRSTRIKE KILLS EIGHT

Eight people were killed on Friday in an airstrike on a house in Al-Naser, east of Rafah. Video images showed crowds of mourners around white shrouded corpses, while a red rag doll lay in the rubble of a crushed house.

The dead included a father, a mother and five of their children, said mourner Turkiah Barbakh.

“They are all children; they haven’t resisted or done anything. What happened to them is unjust,” she said. “How much longer do we have to endure this?”

Senior Israeli and U.S. officials are scheduled to meet in Washington next week, when the United States will present to the Israelis alternative ways to hunt down Hamas without resorting to a full-on assault in Rafah.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday said there was no safe exit for civilians from Rafah.

Meetings are also taking place in Doha on Friday aimed at securing a ceasefire. The truce talks are focused on a proposal for a six-week halt to fighting during which some 40 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas would be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails.

However, Israel is prepared to commit only to a temporary pause in fighting, while Hamas wants a permanent end to the war.

Blinken on Thursday said the gaps were narrowing.

In Gaza, fighting has been concentrated in recent days on the Al Shifa hospital complex, which is also sheltering hundreds of people displaced from their homes.

Israeli troops entered the facility on Monday and have been combing through the sprawling complex, which they say is connected to a tunnel network used by Hamas.

Israel said it had killed hundreds of fighters and detained more than 500 suspects in its operation on Al Shifa, including 358 members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It said three senior Islamic Jihad military commanders and two Hamas officials responsible for operations in the occupied West Bank were among those detained.

Hamas denies its fighters were in the compound and says civilians and medical staff were rounded up.