Israel-Palestine conflict: Israel has enough troops to launch full-scale attack in Rafah, says US

Israel has enough troops on standby to launch a full-scale ground operation in Rafah in the coming days, an assessment by the Joe Biden administration has revealed, CNN reported. But senior US officials are currently unsure if Israel will carry out such a move in direct defiance of President Joe Biden.

Last week, Joe Biden publicly warned Israel that the US would stop supplying them with weapons if Israeli forces conduct a major invasion of Rafah, a refugee-packed city in southern Gaza.

“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah…, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem,” Biden said in an interview with CNN.

“The president was clear that he would not supply certain offensive weapons for such an operation were to occur,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House on Monday. “It has not yet occurred.”

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on Sunday, warned, going “headlong into Rafah” could have dire consequences.

Israel’s international allies and aid groups have repeatedly warned against a ground incursion into Rafah, where many Palestinians fled and Israel says four Hamas battalions are holed up. Israel says it must root out the remaining fighters.

Israeli spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a briefing that Israeli forces had killed about 100 militant fighters, located 10 tunnel routes and found many weapons in Rafah since the start of the operation a week ago.

Fighting has intensified elsewhere across the Gaza Strip in recent days, including in the north, with the Israeli military returning to areas where it had claimed to have already dismantled Hamas. The clashes on Tuesday were the fiercest in months, residents and militant sources said.

The US also believes that Israel has been able to ‘significantly degrade’ Hamas, a goal the country aims to achieve through war.

“You have seen their ability to launch the kind of attacks that they did on October 7 significantly degraded, if not completely eliminated,” State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said. “They couldn’t launch an attack of that scale today.”

“Their weapons production factories underground have been eliminated. Most of their battalion leadership in the north and in central Gaza has been eliminated. So Israel has achieved a great number of its military objectives,” he added.

It is, however, unclear whether any senior Hamas official is currently present in Rafah as the US continues to help Israel in achieving its goal of eliminating as many senior members of the terrorist group.

In fact, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has offered to give intel on Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in exchange for Israel halting its Rafah offensive.

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