Israel lacks ‘credible plan’ to safeguard Rafah civilians, says Blinken
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Rafah is hosting some 1.4 million Palestinians, most of them displaced from elsewhere in Gaza by fighting.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on May 12 said Israel lacked a “credible plan” to protect some 1.4 million Palestinian civilians in Rafah and warned that an Israeli attack could create an insurgency by failing to kill all Hamas fighters in the southern Gazan city.
“Israel is on a trajectory potentially to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas fighters left or if it leaves a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas,” Mr Blinken said on NBC’s Meet The Press.
Hamas fighters, he said, already are returning to areas of northern Gaza that Israel claimed to have cleared, and an assault on Rafah “risks doing terrible harm to civilians” without ending the Hamas presence there.
Israel’s planned invasion of Rafah
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan raised President Joe Biden’s “longstanding concerns” over a major Israeli assault on Rafah in a call on May 12 with his Israeli counterpart, Mr Tzachi Hanegbi, a White House statement said.
Mr Sullivan discussed alternative courses of action to ensure the defeat of Hamas everywhere in Gaza, and Mr Hanegbi confirmed Israel is taking US concerns into account, the statement said without elaborating.
NBC and CBS News aired interviews with Mr Blinken dominated by the issue of Mr Biden’s decision to pause a shipment of bombs to Israel over fears of massive civilian casualties in Rafah and a US State Department report that Israel’s use of US-supplied arms may have broken international law.
The report, which was unrelated to the bomb shipment, found no specific violations justifying withholding US military aid, saying the chaos of war prevented verification of individual alleged breaches.
Hamas’ use of civilian infrastructure and tunnels “makes it very difficult to determine, particularly in the midst of war”, what happened in specific instances, Mr Blinken said, defending the report criticised by some lawmakers of Mr Biden’s Democratic Party and human rights groups.
Appearing after Mr Blinken on NBC, Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders rejected the report, saying “any observer knows Israel has broken international law” and “should not be receiving another nickel in US military aid”.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, interviewed on the same programme, called Mr Biden’s postponing the bombs “the worst decision in the history of the US-Israeli relationship”.
“Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war they can’t afford to lose, and work with them to minimise casualties,” he said.
Defending the pause on the shipment of 3,500 907kg and 227kg bombs, Mr Blinken said Israel lacked a “credible plan” to protect some 1.4 million civilians sheltering in Rafah.
He told CBS that the shipment was the only US weapons package being withheld.
But that could change, he said, if Israel launches a full-scale attack on Rafah, which Israel says it plans to invade to root out entrenched Hamas fighters.
If Israel “launches this major military operation to Rafah, then there are certain systems that we’re not going to be supporting and supplying for that operation”, said Mr Blinken.
Israel needs to “have a clear, credible plan to protect civilians, which we haven’t seen”, he said.
Most of the 1.4 million Palestinians in Rafah were displaced from elsewhere by fighting and Israeli bombardments that have devastated the seaside enclave.
Israel also has not developed a post-war plan for the security, governance and reconstruction of Gaza, Mr Blinken said, adding on CBS that the United States is working with Arab governments and others on such a plan.
“We have the same objectives as Israel,” he said. “We want to make sure that Hamas cannot govern Gaza again.” He added that the US has been discussing with Israel “a more effective, durable way” of demilitarising Gaza and finding Hamas’ leaders.
Israel’s military operation in Gaza has killed at least 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry.
The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct 7, 2023,
Israel says 620 soldiers have been killed in the fighting. REUTERS
