Middle East conflict live updates: Cease-fire talks stall; Netanyahu says Israel can fight solo

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is prepared to “stand alone” against its enemies, after President Biden warned that he would halt the flow of certain weapons should Israel invade the city of Rafah. Cease-fire talks aimed at pausing the fighting and freeing hostages still held by Hamas have stalled, as the latest round of negotiations in Cairo ended without a breakthrough.

Here’s what to know

• Hamas said it was sending its delegation back to the Qatari capital, Doha, and remained committed to the cease-fire proposal it received last week, The Washington Post reported. Israel has said the proposal Hamas agreed to differed from the version it reviewed. An Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations, said the Israeli team left Cairo on Thursday evening.
• In a later interview on U.S. television, Netanyahu said he hoped that he and Biden could overcome their disagreements. The Israeli prime minister also said that in his vision of a post-Hamas Gaza there would need to be “continuous demilitarization” in the Strip, with a civilian government that is not committed to Israel’s destruction.
• If Israel opts to “smash” into Rafah, Biden would have to make decisions about withholding additional weapons shipments, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. “Again, we hope it doesn’t come to that,” he added.
• UNRWA estimates that around 110,000 people have fled Rafah amid intense Israeli bombardment, it said early Friday on social media. “But nowhere is safe” in the Gaza Strip and “living conditions are atrocious,” it added.
• A ship carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza set sail Thursday from Cyprus, according to Cyprus’s foreign minister and marine tracking websites. The cargo vessel MV Sagamore is expected to make the first aid delivery to Gaza using a U.S.-built temporary pier.
• At least 34,904 people have been killed and 78,514 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children.
• Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 267 soldiers have been killed since the launch of its military operation in Gaza.

2:59 AM: Should Israel ‘smash’ into Rafah, military aid will be withheld, U.S. warns

Israel has to make “a choice” on whether it will escalate its current operations in Rafah and trigger a decision by President Biden to withhold additional weapons shipments, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday.

The current U.S. pause in sending “high payload bombs” applies only to “a particular type of operation in a particular place,” Kirby said in reference to the southern city of Rafah in Gaza, where 1.5 million civilians have crowded to escape Israeli military operations throughout the rest of the enclave. Any argument that the administration is “walking away” from Israel’s legitimate defense needs “flies in the face of facts,” Kirby told reporters.

In recent bilateral conversations, he said, the United States has offered “alternatives” to the kind of operations Israel has already conducted elsewhere in Gaza, including helping make sure the border between Gaza and Egypt can’t be used for smuggling weapons to Hamas, as well as intelligence assistance in targeting remaining Hamas leaders, providing more humanitarian aid and working toward standing up “an alternative governance structure.”

“We’re going to be watching what the Israelis do here, what their decision-making looks like going forward,” Kirby said. If Israel opts to “smash” into Rafah, he said, Biden would have to make decisions about military aid.

“Again, we hope it doesn’t come to that,” he added.

Later Thursday, Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters that the scope of Israel’s current movements in Rafah did not suggest that the ground invasion had started.

“All indications are at this time that it is a relatively limited operation meant to secure that area, and so again, we’ll continue to assess and monitor,” he said of the Israel Defense Forces’ current operations in southern Gaza.

Ryder declined to speak about what operational impact the pause in the supply of certain U.S. weapons might have on Israel’s campaign against Hamas. He added that the administration would continue to urge Israel to forgo a major offensive into the most populated areas of Rafah.

By: Karen DeYoung and Missy Ryan

2:06 AM: Israel defiant after U.S. warns it will halt arms shipments over Rafah

Middle East conflict live updates: Cease-fire talks stall; Netanyahu says Israel can fight solo

TEL AVIV — Israel is ready to “stand alone” in the fight against its enemies, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Thursday, after President Biden warned that he would halt the flow of certain weapons if Israeli troops invaded Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

“If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone,” Netanyahu said in a recorded video message, without specifically mentioning the United States, Israel’s closest ally. Other Israeli officials criticized Biden directly, calling his decision “disappointing and frustrating,” and referring to the shift in U.S. policy as an “arms embargo” against Israel, the most serious public rift since the start of the war.

Israel now has “a choice … to make” on whether it will escalate in Rafah, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) seized control of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt this week — and its leaders have said a full-blown invasion is necessary to eliminate the last Hamas battalions in Gaza.

But for months, the Biden administration has said it would not support an operation in the city, where more than 1 million people have sought refuge, unless Israel presented a credible plan to evacuate and protect civilians in the area. The president on Wednesday said he would cut off offensive weapons shipments if the invasion goes ahead, acknowledging that U.S. munitions, including 2,000-pound bombs, have been used against civilians elsewhere in Gaza.

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By: Shira Rubin, Michael Birnbaum and Karen DeYoung

2:06 AM: Republicans say Biden and Democrats are holding up additional weapons transfers

Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) speaks during a news conference with fellow Republican senators at the Capitol on Thursday.

The top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Thursday that the Biden administration is delaying more than just the shipment of bombs and precision guidance kits (JDAMs) to Israel that the administration confirmed this week.

The administration, along with two congressional Democrats, are holding up at least several other weapons transfers to the Jewish state, Sen. James E. Risch (R-Idaho) and a group of his aides told reporters Thursday.

“There’s tank rounds, mortars, moderately armored tactical vehicles, which aren’t moving the way they should be moving,” Risch said, describing weapons requested by Israel that his aides said the Biden administration was taking months to reach a decision on — a departure from typical timelines, they said.

“We know that they have a bunch of direct commercial sales cases, particularly JDAM kits, and foreign military sales cases, that they’re considering inside the executive branch, [that] they have not notified to us,” a Republican aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said. That aide, along with others on the committee staff, spoke on the condition of anonymity under guidelines set by the Republican staff. “And they’ve been considering those cases since December in some instances, but [others since] January, February, March.”

The process typically takes 30 days, the aide said. “It’s very unusual to take cases from such close allies and deliberate over them for such an extended period of time, particularly when you’re in the middle of a war.”

An administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under terms set by the administration, said they “have not heard of us slow-walking or holding on any transfers of weapons to Israel aside of the one we announced.”

The administration official added, “As you likely know, the standard weapons sale review process can take years.”

A hold on 50 F-15 fighter jets and other weapons by Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, that was first reported this year by Politico, is, in fact, four separate holds, Republican House and Senate aides said Thursday. The shipments include the F-15 planes; F-135 engines to power those planes; Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs); and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) tail kits, which provide bombs with precision-guidance technology, a House Republican aide said.

“Playing politics with the congressional arms review process and promoting inaccuracies undermines this crucial oversight prerogative,” Meeks said in a statement. The congressman declined, through a spokesman, to say what inaccuracies he was referring to. The spokesman said it was his office’s policy not to discuss congressional holds.

A spokesman for Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, did not respond to a request for comment. Meeks, Cardin and Risch, together with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), are the four congressional lawmakers — known as the “four corners” — who have the authority to hold up arms transfers.

The Biden administration this week confirmed a pause on a weapons shipment that officials characterized as consisting of 2,000-pound bombs and other heavy munitions, known as bunker busters, that can inflict mass civilian casualties, particularly in a densely populated environment such as Gaza. The administration said it was withholding them over concerns about Israel’s planned Rafah offensive.

A Risch aide said the paused shipment also includes “small-diameter” bombs, weighing about 250 pounds. Administration officials have declined to address that claim.

Risch’s office suggested that the administration had overstepped its jurisdiction by “reviewing” that transfer because it concerns a direct commercial sale, as opposed to a sale financed by the U.S. government.

“The U.S. is not a party to this contract. This is a contract between Israel and Boeing,” a Senate Republican aide said. “And the United States is now coming in after the deal has completely been sealed, paid for, manufactured, everything else — the U.S. government is now coming in and revoking the contract, even though it’s not a party to it.”

According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a nonpartisan office that provides analysis of U.S. laws and policy, Risch’s office is wrong; the president does have the authority to halt such a transfer, even permanently.

“Both the executive branch and Congress have options for terminating planned or ongoing sales, as well as prohibiting future [Foreign Military Sales] and [Direct Commercial Sales] transfers,” Paul K. Kerr and Liana W. Rosen wrote in a 2020 CRS report. The Arms Export Control Act of 1961 “prohibits the sale or delivery of U.S.-origin defense articles if the President finds that a recipient country has used such articles for unauthorized purposes,” the report states.

By: Abigail Hauslohner