President Biden’s team sought again on Thursday to put the brakes on Israeli plans for a major military assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, prompting the Israelis to agree to rethink their approach and come back for further consultations, the White House said in a statement.
During a virtual meeting led by Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, the American side evaluated options for the attack presented by Israel but was not convinced that those plans met Mr. Biden’s insistence that any operation be calibrated to minimize civilian casualties, according to the White House statement. The two sides agreed to “meet again soon,” the statement said.
The meeting was convened just days after the United States came to Israel’s defense against a barrage of more than 300 missiles and drones fired by Iran; Israeli, U.S. and other allied forces knocked down nearly all of the incoming Iranian weapons, resulting in little damage and no fatalities.
Despite that close collaboration, though, the discussion on Thursday underscored that the two sides remained at odds over Israel’s conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza more than six months after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
“U.S. participants expressed concerns with various courses of action in Rafah, and Israeli participants agreed to take these concerns into account and to have further follow up discussions between experts,” the White House statement said. The statement did not elaborate on the specific concerns.
The Israeli side was led by Ron Dermer, a close adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and member of the Israeli war cabinet, and Tzachi Hanegbi, the prime minister’s national security adviser. The group discussed the Iran attack and efforts to defend Israel against future threats.
The White House statement emphasized that the United States shared Israel’s goal “to see Hamas defeated in Rafah,” but the president has resisted a ground operation out of fear of the consequences for more than 1 million Palestinians who have taken refuge there.
