U.S. signals optimism for Gaza cease-fire as Israel moves into Rafah

U.S. signals optimism for Gaza cease-fire as Israel moves into Rafah

The Biden administration put an optimistic face Tuesday on prospects for a cease-fire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas, even as Israel began offensive action inside the southern Gaza city of Rafah, closing off all access for humanitarian aid to an area where more than 1 million civilians have crowded to escape Israeli military operations.

Negotiations scheduled to resume in Cairo “should be able to close the remaining gaps,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters. “Everybody is coming to the table,” including delegations from Israel and Hamas, he said. “That’s not insignificant. … We believe that where we see the text right now, we see no reason why” remaining differences can’t be resolved.

But there was no indication that either side had yielded on the yawning divide between them. Israel has said the proposal on the table — three phases of roughly six weeks each, during which fighting would stop and groups of hostages would gradually be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners; humanitarian aid would flow; and reconstruction of Gaza would begin — would be only temporary, after which its troops would continue their mission of dismantling Hamas and ensuring it has no place in Gaza’s future.

Hamas insists that by the second phase of the cease-fire, it would be made permanent. The document itself, blessed by mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States, provides little answer, calling only for a period of “sustained calm.”

As negotiators resumed the crucial talks, with CIA Director William J. Burns and top Egyptian and Qatari officials serving as go-betweens, the administration struggled to define Israel’s operations in Rafah as less than the major military operation that President Biden has publicly warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against.

Even before the move into Rafah, the administration delayed at least two arms shipments to Israel, in what one U.S. official called “a shot across the bow” to take the administration’s concerns seriously. The shipments include 6,500 Joint Direct Attack Munitions and a number of small-diameter bombs.

It was the first known instance of a delay in U.S. arms to Israel since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that began the Israel-Hamas war. When asked about the decision, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that U.S. support for Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas remains intact.

The current situation — with negotiations hanging by a thread and Rafah under threat — began with a rapid series of events last weekend, when Hamas fired rockets at Kerem Shalom, a border crossing from Israel into Gaza; it and nearby Rafah, on the Egyptian border, are the only humanitarian entries into the southern part of the enclave. Israel then declared Kerem Shalom closed.

Separately, Hamas announced that it had responded “positively” to the proposed hostage deal that Israel had signed off on the week before. Israel declared that response unacceptable. On Monday, Israel dropped leaflets over eastern Rafah ordering about 100,000 civilians to evacuate to an area some miles away along the Mediterranean coast. On Tuesday morning, it took over the Rafah crossing, declaring that it, too, was closed.

On Monday, Israel ordered about 100,000 civilians to evacuate an area of Rafah in southern Gaza.

Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on near-monthly visits to Israel, for months have warned the Israelis against invading Rafah, concerned that it would set off a humanitarian catastrophe that would overshadow the war’s already heavy civilian toll.

White House officials said they were not certain whether Israel still planned to move ahead with a full-scale ground invasion. A senior administration official, one of several who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said they viewed the Israeli strikes and incursion into eastern Rafah as a response to the Hamas attack on Kerem Shalom, which killed four Israeli soldiers.

Others suggested it was a pressure tactic in the negotiations. But some, veterans of months of tense exchanges with Israel, were sure it was the beginning of the ground invasion to eliminate the final vestiges of Hamas — believed to be sheltering in Rafah — despite U.S. warnings.

“This appears to be a limited operation, but of course much depends on what comes next,” Miller said. Israel “has said quite clearly that they want to conduct a major military operation. We have made it clear that we oppose such an operation.”

Kirby, speaking at the White House, said that “what we’ve been told by our Israeli counterparts is that this operation … was limited and designed to cut off Hamas’s ability to smuggle weapons and funds into Gaza … that this is an operation of limited scope, scale and duration.”

“Rafah right now is closed because of the operations Israel is conducting. Kerem Shalom has been closed now for several days,” Kirby said. Biden, he said, had raised the issue of Kerem Shalom in a Monday telephone call with Netanyahu and was “assured it would be open very soon. We need to see that happen.”

The administration is “watching very closely” and also wants to see Rafah “opened up as soon as possible,” he said, calling it “absolutely critical.”

Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres called this a “decisive moment,” in which an agreement between Hamas and Israel is “essential to stop the inevitable suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and the hostages and their families.” Calling for “political courage” on all sides, he said the negotiations are “a crucial opportunity that the region and indeed the world cannot afford to miss.” Yet, Guterres said, things “are moving in the wrong direction.”

Other U.N. officials described disaster for those in and around Gaza as only days away as all fuel, food, water, and medical and sanitation assistance has suddenly ceased.

Biden made no comment on the war or the negotiations Tuesday. In an address marking the Holocaust Days of Remembrance, he focused on the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and forcefully denounced the “ferocious surge of antisemitism in America and around the world” that has followed Israel’s military response in Gaza.

The resulting humanitarian crisis, amid U.S. diplomatic and weapons support for Israel, has reverberated domestically on college campuses and at protests at almost every public event Biden holds. But the president largely avoided mentioning the war or the negotiations, and instead warned against antisemitism.

“There is no place on any campus in America, any place in America, for antisemitism or hate speech or threats of violence of any kind,” Biden said. “Whether against Jews or anyone else. … This ancient hatred of Jews didn’t begin with the Holocaust; it didn’t end with the Holocaust either — or after, even after our victory in World War II,” he said. “This hatred continues to lie deep in the hearts of too many people in the world, and it requires our continued vigilance and outspokenness. That hatred was brought to life on October 7th.”

Biden has been forced to walk an increasingly fine line between his commitment to support Israel and the administration’s growing frustration with how Israel has conducted the war in Gaza, where its air and ground attacks have killed more than 34,000, according to Gazan health authorities, and reduced much of the enclave to rubble.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) attends the Holocaust Days of Remembrance ceremony on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

It has also added to political polarization in Congress. Speaking at the Holocaust remembrance before Biden did, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) criticized those who have questioned Israel’s response to the Hamas attacks.

“There are some who would prefer to criticize Israel and lecture them on their military tactics,” he said. “They would rather do that than punish the terrorists who perpetrated these horrific crimes.”

Even as Republicans have led the charge against any administration questioning of Israel, the issue has divided Democrats, many of whom have demanded that Biden find Israel in violation of U.S. legal restrictions against military aid and sales to countries in violation of U.S. and international human rights law.

This week, the administration was expected to send Congress an assessment of the many charges of rights violations that human rights groups have lodged against Israel.

“I can understand that the Biden administration is trying to determine when that wire is tripped” when it comes to forging ahead with a Rafah invasion, said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a leading proponent of conditioning aid to Israel and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“But what we’ve seen has been a pattern of the Netanyahu government ignoring the request of the United States,” Van Hollen said. “This has been a constant pattern, so the Biden administration will have to make a determination as to whether and when that red line is crossed. Cutting off a humanitarian corridor is a major escalation.”

John Hudson, Matt Viser and Michael Birnbaum contributed to this report.