The US itself broke the 'red line' with Israel

The US once warned that Rafah was their "red line" for Israel, but Washington continuously broke this limit, when its allies attacked the southernmost city of Gaza. "If Israel marches into Rafah, I will not provide weapons for them to do that," US President Joe Biden said in an interview with CNN earlier this month, three days after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began the operation on the outskirts of the city of Rafah, southernmost Gaza.


The US at that time constantly pressured Israel to accept negotiations to end the fighting in Gaza, rescue hostages and work towards a two-state solution to achieve lasting peace in the region. To add weight,


Mr. Biden announced that the US had stopped sending heavy bombs to Israel, the weapons that Tel Aviv needs to use to attack fortified targets in urban areas in Gaza. When Israel rejected the draft ceasefire agreement with Hamas and prepared to send troops into Rafah to "erase" the Gaza armed group, President Biden declared this a "red line" with the US, because Rafah is a shelter. The last refuge of more than a million Palestinians evacuated from across the strip

In subsequent statements, Mr. Biden and top US national security officials both said that Washington "does not support" a major attack on Rafah, especially if Israel does not outline a plan to protect civilians. and increase humanitarian assistance to the region.

But Israel ignored all US warnings, conducting a ground attack on Rafah, airstrikes on refugee camps and sending tanks into the city center. Nearly two weeks after Israel began the operation in Rafah, President Biden's administration said that the red line they had drawn had still "not been crossed".

"What we've seen so far in terms of Israeli military activities in that area is more targeted and limited, not yet large-scale attacks on dense urban centers," Jake Sullivan , White House national security adviser, said last week. He added that "there is no mathematical formula" to assess the scale of the IDF attack and "what we look at is whether it caused a lot of casualties or destruction, or whether it was carried out in a haphazard way." precise and adjustable".

However, humanitarian organizations in the region say President Biden's administration is refusing to acknowledge what they do not want to see. As Israeli forces entered Rafah from the east and gradually moved toward the center of Rafah, "this city now exists in three completely different worlds," according to Suze van Meegan, head of operations for the Refugee Council. Norway in the Gaza region

"The east side is the typical fighting zone, the center is like a ghost town and the west side is where people live crowded together in terrible conditions," Meegan said. She affirmed that the "limited" attack that Israel announced did not help make a difference on the ground, when panic and fear still prevailed everywhere. Many Palestinians have hastily left Rafah in recent days out of fear of what might happen.

Most of them went to the nearby city of Khan Younis, which was reduced to rubble during Israel's spring offensive and is littered with unexploded ordnance. Some returned to central or northern Gaza, where fighting continued, while others went to the barren coastal enclave of Al-Mawasi.

"What happened in Rafah was just the slow start to a full-blown campaign, in which civilians are still being killed in military operations under the guise of precision strikes," an aid official said on condition of anonymity. .

Edem Wosornu, director of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Operations (OCHA), said last week that "the humanitarian situation in Gaza is increasingly urgent, in the context of ongoing Israeli military operations in and around the conflict." around Rafah. Humanitarian organizations have almost no words left to describe what is happening." Mr. Biden's warning about red lines has faced harsh criticism from Republican members in the US House of Representatives. They accused him of "undermining Israel's struggle" against Hamas, the armed group that conducted the raid on October 7, 2023 and caused the conflict to flare up.

The White House also faces pressure from a wave of protests at universities and cities across the country, along with accusations from congressional Democrats and other countries that Mr. Biden is supporting Israel. "genocide" during the conflict has left more than 36,000 people dead in Gaza.



"The public is not clear on the difference between what we are seeing in Rafah and what would be considered crossing President Biden's red line. Can you explain to us?", Democratic congressman Sara Jacobs told Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a recent House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.

The Biden administration seems to be trying to appease both sides. After stopping the transfer of bombs earlier this month, Mr. Biden quickly approved a new shipment of weapons worth $1 billion to Israel, most of which were tank bullets and mortar shells used by Tel Aviv in Rafah and many other places in Gaza. Air strikes continue.

The unnamed US official said that they accepted there would be civilian casualties in Israel's Rafah offensive, but emphasized that Washington still opposes any action that could lead to a death toll as large as what happened in the past. happened in Khan Younis and Gaza City.


US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller acknowledged the scale of the problem. "We are very concerned about our ability to provide food, medicine, humanitarian assistance, shelter and sanitation to them. We are working with international partners on that issue, and are in dialogue with Israeli government," he said.

From a few hundred trucks a day, the number of vehicles carrying aid into Gaza from all land border crossings has dropped to double digits, according to OCHA. Israeli combat operations in and around Rafah have made access to UN humanitarian aid depots impossible.