Blinken reiterates US ‘opposition to major ground operation in Rafah’ in meeting with Gallant

Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised US opposition to a major ground operation in Rafah with Israel’s defense minister on Monday, after a delegation to discuss Washington’s concerns was scrapped earlier in the day.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to send the delegation to Washington to discuss the Rafah offensive but cancelled it after the United States abstained on a UN Security Council resolution that demanded an immediate ceasefire in Gaza during Ramadan.

In his meeting with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in Washington, Blinken reiterated US “opposition to a major ground operation in Rafah,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller says in a statement.

Such a move “would further jeopardize the welfare of the more than 1.4 million Palestinian civilians sheltering there,” Miller says.

Netanyahu’s determination to launch a ground operation in Rafah, the city on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt
— Hamas’s last stronghold and where most of the territory’s population is sheltering — has become a key point of contention with Washington.

Blinken “underscored that alternatives exist to a major ground invasion that would both better ensure Israel’s security and protect Palestinian civilians,” Miller says.

The two additionally “discussed the need to immediately surge and sustain additional humanitarian assistance to meet the needs of civilians in Gaza,” he adds.

Israel said earlier in the day that the United States abstention “hurts” both its war effort and attempts to release hostages taken by terrorists on October 7.

It was “a clear retreat from the consistent position of the US,” Netanyahu’s office said.