Israel Hits Rafah Despite US Warning on Arms Transfers

AFP/APP

Rafah: Smoke rose from strikes on Gaza’s crowded southern city of Rafah Thursday after US President Joe Biden vowed to stop supplying artillery shells and other weapons to Israel if a full-scale offensive into the city goes ahead.

It was the starkest warning yet from the United States, Israel’s main military provider, over the civilian impact of its war against  Palestinian group.

An AFP correspondent and witnesses on Thursday reported 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 international objections by sending in tanks and conducting what it called “targeted raids” in eastern Rafah.

 In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Biden warned he would stop some US weapons supplies to Israel if it carried out its long-threatened major Rafah ground offensive.

Israel on Thursday 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.”

Asked about Israel’s action already in Rafah, Biden said “they haven’t gone in the population centres”.