Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit back at Biden after the US president issued a “red line” warning against a military ground attack on the refugee-packed city of Rafah in Gaza’s south.
Starting Sunday Netanyahu responded by vowing to press forward with the planned offensive on Rafah, believed to be imminent, when asked about the Biden red line statement. “We’ll go there. We’re not going to leave them. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn’t happen again. Never happens again.”
Biden had told MSNBC on Saturday that an attack on Rafah is a red line for the administration, but as we underscored earlier he didn’t attach any potential consequences to such an action. “But there’s red lines that if he crosses them — you cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead as a consequence of going after” Hamas, Biden said. “There’s other ways to deal with, to get to, to deal with the trauma caused by Hamas.”
Biden then asserted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel” in the way the war against Hamas is being executed.
Netanyahu in response to this told Politico, “I don’t know exactly what the president meant.” The Israeli leader hit back as follows: “But if he meant by that, that I’m pursuing private policies against the wishes of the majority of Israelis and that this is hurting the interests of Israel, then he’s wrong on both counts.”
