Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he would move forward with an invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, ignoring President Joe Biden’s warning over the weekend that Israel would be crossing a “red line” if it proceeds with an attack on the densely populated area.
“We’ll go there. We’re not going to leave them,” Netanyahu told Politico Sunday when asked whether Israeli forces would move into Rafah to drive out Hamas. “You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn’t happen again. Never happens again.”
Netanyahu was responding to Biden saying during a Saturday interview with MSNBC that an Israeli attack on Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have been displaced amid the Israel-Hamas war, would be unacceptable.
Despite calling such an offensive a “red line,” the president said he will never stop supporting Israel in the conflict. However, he does want Israel to be more intentional about protecting civilians in Gaza.
“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.”
Israel is facing significant international pressure over its intention to invade Rafah: German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said last month that an attack on Rafah would be a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
The weekend sparring between Biden and Netanyahu is just the latest example of a deepening rift between the two men over Israel’s prosecution of the war against Hamas.
While he’s remained publicly supportive of Israel’s efforts to eradicate Hamas, Biden has begun to sour on Netanyahu’s approach to the conflict in recent weeks and has disparaged Netanyahu behind closed doors, calling him an “assh***” in a conversation with campaign donors last month, according to NBC News.
The White House has been pushing for a two-state solution as part of a permanent cease-fire, while Israel has insisted that there can be no such solution while Hamas remains the de facto governing authority in Gaza.
“The positions that I espouse are supported by the overwhelming majority of Israelis who say to you after October 7: ‘We don’t want to see a Palestinian state,’” Netanyahu said.
During the Sunday interview, Netanyahu also took on Biden’s claim that he is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel.”
“[The Israeli people] also support my position that says that we should resoundingly reject the attempt to ram down our throats a Palestinian state. That is something that they agree on,” Netanyahu said.
As for the European support for a two-state solution, Netanyahu argued that advocates for rapprochement underestimate the depth of Palestinian opposition to the existence of a Jewish state.
“Yeah, they would say it. But they don’t understand that the reason we don’t have peace is not because the Palestinians don’t have a state. It’s because the Jews have a state. And in fact, the Palestinians have not brought themselves to recognize and accept the Jewish state.”