Israel has no credible plan to evacuate civilians from Rafah and the White House remains opposed to a major military operation there, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters in Washington on Tuesday.
“I have not yet seen a credible and executable plan to move people that has any level of detail about how you not only house feed and provide medicine for those innocent [Palestinian] civilians,” Sullivan said.
He spoke as the IDF purchased 40,000 tents to house Palestinian civilians who would need to be evacuated from the area of Rafah, should the IDF conduct an operation to destroy the Hamas battalions in that area of southern Gaza.
The US has opposed such an operation because it fears it would create a humanitarian disaster, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that he plans to move forward with a Rafah operation arguing that it is the only way to ensure a victory over Hamas.
Netanyahu told army induces on Tuesday, ”We will complete the elimination of Hamas’s battalions, including in Rafah. No force in the world will stop us. There are many forces trying to do this but it will not help because this enemy, after what it has done, will not do this again. Neither will it exist. We are committed to doing this.”
“If he has a date, he hasn’t shared it with us”
On Monday he said he had set a date for that operation, but Sullivan said that no such date had been given to the Biden administration.
“If he has a date, he hasn’t shared it with us,” Sullivan said. “The United States does not believe that a massive ground invasion of Rafah, where 1.3 or more million people are sheltering, having been pushed out of other parts of Gaza…is not the best way forward.
“There are better ways to go after Hamas in Rafah,” Sullivan said.
He added that conversations about the operations had occurred at senior levels and would continue to be held.
“We will make determinations about how we proceed” on the matter, “based on how those conversations unfold,” Sullivan said, adding that depending on what happened, “the US would respond accordingly.”
US: If Israel’s policy does not change on aid, US policy will
He also took Israel to task for not yet meeting the overall necessary standard regarding the delivery and distribution of humanitarian aid.
The US has to see “sustained follow through on specific concrete and measurable steps to provide access provide deconfliction take other measures to alleviate the suffering of people in Gaza.
“And if Israel’s policy doesn’t change on a sustained basis, and that way, our policy will change,” he stated.
His message for Israel was the same one that US President Joe Biden delivered to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone conversation last week.
Israel has since taken steps to improve the situation with over 468 truckloads of aid entering Gaza on Tuesday. It has also announced that it would open the Erez crossing for aid and allow goods destined for Gaza to be unloaded at the nearby Ashdod port.
“Israel has made public statements. Now we need to see them follow through with action and that action needs to be specific, concrete, and measurable.
“There’s been a substantial increase in the amount of aid going into Gaza. That’s good. It is not good enough. We would like to see more action following through on what the Prime Minister has announced publicly,” Sullivan stated.
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