US: IDF op in Rafah over last day doesn’t amount to major offensive we’ve warned against

The US does not believe that the IDF’s operation in Rafah during the last 24 hours amounts to a wide-scale military offensive, which President Joe Biden warned would lead him to halt offensive weapons shipments to Israel.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that what we’ve seen here in the last 24 hours connotes or indicates a broad, large-scale invasion or major ground operation. It appears to be localized near the crossing largely with the forces that they had put in there at the beginning,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby says.

At the beginning of the week, Israel launched an operation to take over the Palestinian side of the Rafah Crossing. On Thursday night the security cabinet voted to approve a measured expansion of the operation.

Israel has ordered some 100,000 Palestinians to evacuate from eastern neighborhoods of Rafah and has carried out repeated airstrikes in the area. It has also shut down the Rafah Crossing, offering no timetable for when the crossing will be opened for the delivery of aid.

“We’re watching this with concern,” Kirby says during a briefing with reporters. “Everyday that crossing is not available and usable for humanitarian assistance, there’s going to be more suffering, and that’s a deep concern to us. We urge the Israelis to open up that crossing to humanitarian assistance immediately. That aid is desperately needed, and we urge them… to be as careful precise and discriminate as they can.”