White House: Rafah ground offensive would be ‘disaster’
U.S. sees gaps narrowing on hostage deal. Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi expected to hold meetings March 26-27 at the White House on Rafah.
Even as the Israeli Prime Minister said he was prepared to do a ground offensive into the southern Gaza city of Rafah without American support, the White House said it believed there was time and space to present alternative options at a meeting with senior Israeli officials next week.
Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer and National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi are currently expected to arrive in Washington on Monday and to hold discussions at the White House Tuesday and Wednesday on alternative options to a major ground offensive into Rafah. Separately, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is due to arrive in Washington on Sunday to hold previously scheduled meetings with Pentagon counterparts on Monday.
“We believe that a major ground offensive is a mistake,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told journalists at the White House press briefing today (March 22).
“We believe that it will be…a disaster, certainly for those million and a half refugees in Rafah,” Kirby said. “And so we want to present to the Israelis some viable alternatives and options about how they could go after the legitimate threat that Hamas bear in Rafah without sacrificing the safety and security of its people.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after meeting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Tel Aviv today, said he hoped that Israel would have U.S. support for entering Rafah, but he was prepared to act without it.
“I told him that I greatly appreciate the fact that for more than five months we have been standing together in the war against Hamas,” Netanyahu said.
“I also said that we have no way to defeat Hamas without entering Rafah and eliminating the remnant of the battalions there,” Netanyahu said. “I told him that I hope we would do this with U.S. support, but if necessary, we will do it alone.”
The White House’s Kirby, asked about Netanyahu’s seemingly preemptive rejection of U.S. ideas for alternative options, noted the Israeli government has refrained as yet from pursuing the operation, and is willing to engage with the U.S. in discussions on possible, more targeted options.
“Yes, we saw what the Prime Minister said,” Kirby said. “But we haven't seen them go into Rafah, have we. They haven’t conducted a major ground offensive yet.
“So we believe there's still time and space to have these discussions and to…share some of our thinking about viable alternatives,” Kirby said. “And we'll see where it goes from there.”
While the United States shares Israel’s goal of defeating Hamas and ensuring Israel’s long term security, “a major military ground operation in Rafah is not the way to do it,” Blinken told journalists in Tel Aviv today following his meetings with Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet.
“It risks killing more civilians, it risks wreaking greater havoc with the provision of humanitarian assistance, it risks further isolating Israel around the world and jeopardizing its long-term security and standing,” he said.
‘Gaps narrowing’ in Doha talks on hostage release/ceasefire deal
Both Blinken and the White House suggested there was some progress at talks that resumed in Doha, Qatar today on a long-sought six week truce for Gaza that would make way for the release of some of the Israeli hostages being held by Hamas. Mossad Director David Barnea and CIA Director Bill Burns were due to join the talks in Doha today, along with Egypt intelligence chief Abbas Kamel and Qatar Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al Thani, the Israeli Prime Minister’s office said.
“We made progress in the last couple of weeks on the hostage negotiations, closing gaps,” Blinken said in Tel Aviv today. “But…when you get down to the last items, they tend to be the hardest.”
“So there are some hard issues to work through, but we’re determined to do everything we can to get there and to get people home,” he said.
“We think those talks are making progress,” the NSC’s Kirby said.
“We do believe that we’re getting closer,” he said. “The fact that the discussions are still happening, and that they are happening at the pace at which they are, and with the participation that we’re seeing on all sides, it’s a good sign.”
“I don’t want to get too sanguine here. Nothing’s negotiated ‘til it’s all negotiated,” he added. “But we do believe that the gaps are narrowing and we are getting closer.”
Eating bird seed in northern Gaza
A group of US and UK doctors who have been volunteering in Gaza hospitals, who met with US lawmakers on a visit to Washington this week, said the impression they got is that the lawmakers they spoke with felt frustrated that the U.S. administration was not using more leverage with the Israelis to relax limits on the entry of humanitarian aid, restrictions that are tipping Gaza into full-fledged famine, the UN warns.
“I think the message was that we they were very receptive to what we were saying but…as an outsider, I got the very clear message that they are fighting an uphill battle, and not really that close to what the administration is doing,” Professor Nick Maynard, an Oxford, UK surgeon who recently traveled on a medical mission to Gaza with the British charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), said after meetings on the Hill March 20 with Senators Bernie Sanders, Chris Val Hollen, and others. “And their voices aren't being heard.”
Maynard said a Palestinian colleague from his medical charity MAP had elderly family members in north Gaza who were unable to evacuate to the southern part of the strip. That colleague and his family are now eating bird seed because they do not have access to other food, he said.
“They are now…eating birdseed,” Maynard said. “They were eating animal feed, but they’ve run out of animal feed.”
“Famine is imminent in the northern part of the Gaza Strip and the entire population of Gaza is facing crisis levels of food insecurity or worse,” the World Food Program said Monday, citing a report by an expert body, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
“People in Gaza are starving to death right now,” WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain said. “There is a very small window left to prevent an outright famine and to do that we need immediate and full access to the north. If we wait until famine has been declared, it’s too late. Thousands more will be dead.”
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