Biden and Netanyahu to speak after Israel orders partial Rafah evacuation
President Joe Biden will speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, hours after Israel’s military announced a partial evacuation of the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Israeli leaders have remained steadfast in their desire to conduct ground operations in Rafah to complete their north-to-south sweep of Gaza to defeat Hamas, but U.S. and world leaders have warned that doing so without properly accounting for the more than 1 million Palestinians who have sought refuge there could result in catastrophic civilian casualties.
The Israel Defense Forces announced on Monday that Palestinians in several east Rafah neighborhoods should evacuate quickly. Palestinians in those areas are expected to travel to an encampment in the Mawasi area, on the outskirts of Khan Younis, which the IDF said would include field hospitals, tents, and large quantities of food, water, medicine, and other supplies.
“We can’t speak for IDF operations,” a National Security Council spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “We have made our views clear on a major ground invasion of Rafah to the Israeli government, and the President will speak with the Prime Minister today.”
The United States has sought for several weeks to convince Israel not to go through with a ground invasion of Rafah. U.S., Qatari, and Egyptian officials have hoped to get Israeli and Hamas leaders to agree to a ceasefire deal, but those talks have not been successful.
“We continue to believe that a hostage deal is the best way to preserve the lives of the hostages and avoid an invasion of Rafah, where more than a million people are sheltering,” the NSC spokesperson continued. “Those talks are ongoing now.”
The war has already resulted in the deaths of more than 30,000 Palestinians, civilians and combatants, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry. Israel’s military operations were in response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack that left roughly 1,200 people dead. Approximately 250 people were kidnapped, and about half remain held in Gaza against their will.
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The Biden administration has largely supported Israel since Oct. 7 despite some harsh rhetoric about the civilian death toll and humanitarian crisis. Biden demanded Israel allow more humanitarian aid to get into Gaza and threatened to condition future aid to Israel if it didn’t meet those requirements after an Israeli airstrike killed seven aid workers.
Israeli officials told Axios that a U.S. ammunition shipment to Israel was stopped last week, which marks the first time since the Oct. 7 attack that the U.S. halted a weapons shipment intended for Israel.
