Report: US officials say Biden has ‘definitely thought about’ conditioning military aid if Israel begins Rafah offensive

US President Joe Biden has considered placing conditions on military aid to Israel if it launches a widespread ground offensive in the southern Gaza city Rafah, four unnamed American officials tell Politico.

“It’s something he’s definitely thought about,” one of the officials says.

When asked for a response by Politico, National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson tells the outlet that “we are not going to comment on speculation by anonymous sources or add to what the president said this weekend.”

White House deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton says: “[Biden] thinks that there are other approaches which we have taken and are taking that are more effective.”

Israel has vowed to move into Rafah to eliminate the last Hamas stronghold there. It also believes that some of the hostages and Hamas leaders are in Rafah. Last month, special forces rescued two Israeli hostages from captivity in an apartment in the city.

Over half of the Gaza Strip’s population has fled to Rafah during the war sparked by Hamas’s devastating attack on October 7. The offensive in Gaza has displaced most of the enclave’s 2.3 million people and led to critical shortages of food, water and medicine.

The White House has not hidden its dissatisfaction with Israel over civilian casualties in Gaza and the humanitarian situation there throughout the war.

However, it has recently adopted a harsher tone and there is a deepening public spat between Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Biden said in an interview broadcast Sunday that the planned major offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah would be a “red line,” before he seemingly backtracked and said, “I’m never going to leave Israel” and that “there’s no red line.”

Biden and his aides have urged Netanyahu in strong terms not to launch a major offensive in Rafah until Israel crafts and presents what the US considers to be an effective plan for mass evacuation of civilians. The IDF presented its operational plan to the war cabinet last month.