Netanyahu: Israel will fight with its ‘fingernails’ if needed

JERUSALEM (AP):

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that a US threat to withhold some arms would not prevent Israel from continuing its offensive in Gaza, indicating it might proceed with an invasion of the packed city of Rafah against the wishes of its closest ally.

President Joe Biden has urged Israel not to go ahead with such an operation over fears it would exacerbate the humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian enclave. On Wednesday, he said the United States would not provide offensive weapons for a Rafah offensive, raising pressure on Netanyahu.

But in a statement released Thursday, Netanyahu said “if we have to stand alone, we will stand alone. If we need to, we will fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than fingernails.”

Israel’s top military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, also appeared to downplay the practical impact of any arms holdup. “The army has munitions for the missions it plans, and for the missions in Rafah, too – we have what we need,” he said in response to a question at a news conference.

Israel has repeatedly threatened to invade Rafah, where some 1.3 million Palestinians – over half the population – have sought refuge. The city in southern Gaza is also the main hub for humanitarian operations, which have been severely hindered by the closure of Gaza’s two main crossings this week.

Israel says Rafah is the last stronghold of Hamas and that the army must go in if it hopes to dismantle the group and return scores of hostages captured in the Ocober 7 attack that triggered the war.

In an earlier response to Biden’s decision, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote a post on the platform X with a heart between the words ‘Hamas’ and ‘Biden’. He and other ultra-nationalist members of Netanyahu’s coalition support a large-scale Rafah operation and have threatened to bring down his government if it doesn’t happen.

Aid groups say a Rafah invasion would be catastrophic. The UN says most of the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians suffer from hunger and that northern Gaza is already experiencing “full-blown famine”.

Even the limited operation Israel launched earlier this week, in which a tank brigade captured the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, has thrown humanitarian operations into crisis.

It also complicated what had been months of efforts by the US, Qatar and Egypt to broker a ceasefire and the release of hostages. Hamas this week said it had accepted an Egyptian-Qatari ceasefire proposal, but Israel says the plan does not meet its “core” demands. Several days of follow-up talks appeared to end inconclusively on Thursday.

Some analysts said Biden’s tough line against Israel, and the rift between the allies, threatened to weaken Israel’s negotiating position and harden Hamas’ stances. Hamas has demanded guarantees for an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as part of any deal – steps Israel has ruled out.

“It sends a discordant message at a time when Hamas is holding out on a hostage deal in the hopes that pressure will grow on Israel and it will gain a ceasefire without having to give anything in return,” said the Israel Policy Forum, a pro-Israel organisation based in New York.