The US has paused the shipment of weapons to Israel due to their failure to address certain American concerns about a military operation in Rafah, a senior administration official told Al Arabiya English late Tuesday.
The Israeli army ordered an estimated 100,000 Palestinians earlier in the week to flee Rafah ahead of an anticipated military invasion. Rafah is believed to be home to over 1 million Palestinians who are seeking refuge and safety from Israeli bombardment.
Israel began bombing Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, one of the deadliest in their history.
In recent weeks, Israel has threatened to invade Rafah, but the US has publicly and privately said it is opposed to such an operation with what it has said needs to be a credible plan to safeguard civilians.
The senior Biden administration official said Tuesday that US and Israeli officials have been discussing ways to go about ensuring the humanitarian needs of civilians of Rafah are met and how to operate differently against Hamas there than they have elsewhere in Gaza.
In northern Gaza, tens of thousands of civilians were killed, and US officials pressed their Israeli counterparts about the need to conduct more precision targeting when going after Hamas militants or targets.
“Those discussions are ongoing and have not fully addressed our concerns,” the official told Al Arabiya English.
“As Israeli leaders seemed to approach a decision point on such an operation, we began to carefully review proposed transfers of particular weapons to Israel that might be used in Rafah. This began in April.”
As a result of that review, the US paused one shipment of weapons last week, consisting of 1,800 2,000-lb bombs and 1,700 500-lb bombs.
“We are especially focused on the end-use of the 2,000-lb bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza. We have not made a final determination on how to proceed with this shipment,” the official added.
