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TEL AVIV — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he intends to press ahead with an invasion of the city of Rafah on the southern border of the Gaza Strip in defiance of U.S. President Joe Biden, who has warned such an offensive would be a “red line.”
Amid signs of increasing frustration with Netanyahu, the U.S. president told MSNBC on Saturday that he opposed an escalation of the conflict into Rafah, and that he could not accept “30,000 more Palestinians dead.”
Relief organizations have warned that an attack on Rafah on the border with Egypt — and now a refuge for about half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population — would result in widespread civilian casualties. Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said it would be “a humanitarian catastrophe.”
When asked on Sunday whether Israeli forces would move into Rafah, Netanyahu replied: “We’ll go there. We’re not going to leave. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is, that October 7 doesn’t happen again. Never happens again.” The PM was referring to the murderous Hamas raid that killed more than 1,160 people in Israel and triggered the war.
Without naming them, Netanyahu claimed he had the tacit support of several Arab leaders for driving ahead with the onslaught against Hamas.
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