Washington.-President Joe Biden warned that he will stop supplying Israel with “artillery shells” and other weapons if he launches a major offensive once morest Rafah, a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip.
“Civilians have died in Gaza as a result of these bombs,” he answered when CNN asked him regarding the suspension last week of the delivery of a shipment of bombs to Israel. “We are not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells that have been used” in Israel’s offensive once morest Hamas, Biden said in the interview.
The interview represents Biden’s harshest public comments yet on the possible Israeli military operation, and followed his decision to halt a shipment of heavy bombs to Israel last week amid concerns that the US ally was closing in. to an attack on Rafah despite public and private warnings from his government.
In the followingnoon, the United States Government confirmed that it has withheld the shipment of a shipment of weapons to Israel while it studies how to proceed in the Palestinian enclave of Rafah, one of the only measures that the president, Joe Biden, had to influence his counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We are currently reviewing some short-term security assistance shipments in the context of the events unfolding in Rafah,” Pentagon chief General Lloyd Austin said during an appearance before a Senate subcommittee.
“We would like no major fighting to occur in Rafah, but our main focus is to make sure we protect civilians,” he added, reiterating the position that the United States has defended for weeks.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller went further and announced that the United States was considering withholding further arms shipments to Israel.
This was a step that sectors of the Democratic Party considered progressive, who oppose Israel’s war in Gaza, have been demanding from Biden for weeks.
About 40 legislators, who were joined by surprise by the influential former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, just a month ago asked the White House to take this forceful measure once morest Netanyahu. They did so following an Israeli attack killed seven workers at Spanish chef José Andrés’ NGO World Central Kitchen.
The head of the Pentagon did not give details this Wednesday regarding the contents of the detained shipment, although he said that they are “high-caliber ammunition.”
According to CNN, it would be a package with 3,500 bombs: 1,800 weighing 2,000 pounds (907 kilos) and 1,700 bombs weighing 500 pounds (226 kilos). The United States would be above all concerned regarding Israel’s use of heavier weapons in densely populated areas.
Austin, in fact, did maintain that “it’s regarding having the right types of weapons for the task at hand.”
“A small diameter bomb, which is a precision weapon, is very useful in a dense, built-up environment, but a 2,000-pound bomb that might cause a lot of collateral damage may not be so useful,” he explained.
Republican Senator Susan Collins reproached him for the decision on behalf of his colleagues: “Pausing or delaying the delivery of weapons to Israel is already a decision, and it is one with which most members of Congress would disagree.”
Later, in a joint letter, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell questioned Biden regarding the measure: “These pauses in critical arms shipments call into question that his “commitment to Israel’s security will remain ironclad.”
“The American people deserve to understand the nature, timing and scope of these reviews,” he added.
Beyond the doors of the Legislature, the White House refused to comment on the brake on the shipment of weapons and its spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, limited herself to repeating that the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security is “iron.”
All this occurred on the same day that the US Government, through the State Department, had to make public a report with its conclusion on whether or not Israel has violated international humanitarian law in Gaza, a document that was to serve to evaluate future arms shipments.
However, the State Department missed the deadline since according to Miller they still do not have the document ready, on which they have been working for months, and its publication is postponed without a new date.Clarín.
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2024-05-09 20:31:52
