Rafah under fire
AFP | Stockholm, Sweden
The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com
Smoke rose from strikes on Gaza's crowded southern city of Rafah yesterday after US President Joe
Biden vowed to stop supplying artillery shells and other weapons to Israel if a full-scale assault goes
ahead.
It was the starkest warning yet from the US, Israel’s main military provider, over the civilian impact of its war against Hamas.
An AFP correspondent and witnesses yesterday reported Israeli strikes on several parts of Rafah, where the United Nations said 1.4 million people were sheltering.
“The tanks and jets are striking,” Tarek Bahlul said on a deserted Rafah street. “Every minute you hear a rocket and you don’t know where it will land.”
Israel has already defied inter-national objections by sending in tanks and conducting what it called “targeted raids” in eastern Rafah, the city it says is home to Hamas’s last remaining battalions.
In an interview with CNN on would stop some US weapons Wednesday, Biden warned he would supply to Israel if it carried out its long-threatened Rafah assault.
Israel yesterday called Biden’s comments “very disappointing”. Biden told CNN: “If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used... to deal with the cities.”
“We’re not gonna supply the weapons and the artillery shells that have been used.”
Fresh warning
The fresh warning came after his administration paused delivery last week of 1,800 2,000-pound (907-kilo) bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs as Israel appeared ready to attack Rafah.
“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs,” Biden said. “It’s just wrong.”
Ties between the allies have become increasingly strained as Biden and other top Washington officials criticise Israel over its conduct of the war.
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