Joe Biden says US will stop some weapons shipments to Israel if it invades Rafah

The United States will stop sending arms to Israel if it launches a major offensive in Rafah, President Joe Biden said as he conceded that US bombs had already been used by Israeli forces to kill Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

In his clearest warning yet to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, Mr Biden confirmed that last week he had paused a shipment of 3,500 heavy bombs.

“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centres,” the president told CNN, as he faced mounting pressure from Democrats to get tough with Israel ahead of November’s presidential election against Donald Trump.

“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah… I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities,” he said, drawing angry responses from Mr Trump’s Republican allies. Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, called the suspension “very disappointing” but said he did not believe the United States would stop supplying arms to Israel entirely.

Mr Biden said the US remained committed to Israel’s defence and would go on supplying Iron Dome rocket interceptors and other defensive arms, but that if Rafah is attacked “we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells used, that have been used”.

Mr Netanyahu, under pressure from far-Right hardliners in his coalition cabinet, is adamant that Hamas must be eradicated from its last stronghold in Gaza despite Rafah hosting more than one million Palestinian refugees.

But he faces intense pressure from Israel’s allies to hold back from attacking the city, with the US accounting for about 70 per cent of its arms supplies. UK weapons exports to Israel are small in comparison and Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said conditions on their sale “are very strict and they will be kept continuously under review”.

Speaking on LBC, she said: “We do not want large-scale incursion into Rafah. Half the population are there.” Hamas has fighters embedded in the civilian population, Ms Keegan said, “but the humanitarian impact would be too large”.

US arms supplies to Israel accelerated after Hamas’ October 7 attack that killed some 1,200 civilians in Israel and led to about 250 being taken hostage by the militants. Nearly 35,000 Palestinians are said to have been killed since in Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

The White House said meanwhile that it still believes there is a “pathway” to a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli troops on Tuesday seized control of Gaza's vital Rafah border crossing in what the White House described as a limited operation that stopped short of the full-on Israeli invasion of the city that Mr Biden has repeatedly warned against on humanitarian grounds, most recently in a Monday call with Mr Netanyahu.

Israel has ordered the evacuation of 100,000 Palestinians from the city.

Israeli forces have also carried out what it describes as "targeted strikes" on the eastern part of Rafah and captured the Rafah crossing, a critical conduit for the flow of humanitarian aid along the Gaza-Egypt border.