Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu after US threat: ‘If necessary, we will continue fighting alone’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reacted particularly strongly to US President Joe Biden’s threats not to supply weapons for an invasion of the city of Rafah in Gaza.

‘If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone. If necessary, we will fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than fingernails,” Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video his cabinet distributed on social media on Thursday.

The international community fears a massacre of civilians if Israel goes ahead with its plans. Many Palestinians had already fled the Israeli bombardments from northern Gaza. The leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, is also believed to be hiding in the city. With a full-scale attack, Netanyahu hopes to achieve his ultimate goal of eliminating the Palestinian organization once and for all.

Washington’s military support is crucial to the Israeli war machine. A former Israeli commander warned Thursday that the country needs American weapons to continue the war. If the supply does come to a standstill, Israel will be forced to scour the international arms market, according to him. The US government already stopped the delivery of thousands of heavy bombs last week.

With his statements, Biden bows to the pressure from his Democratic party colleagues and from the growing student protests at universities. The president came under fire for continuing to support Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite the dramatic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. The dissatisfaction among Democratic supporters threatens to undermine his chances in the presidential elections in November. Despite threats to cut off all military aid, Biden has still not done so, except for that one canceled bomb delivery. According to the news agency Reuters, shipments of weapons worth billions of dollars are still in the pipeline.

Netanyahu is therefore choosing the offensive, as other members of his government have done before. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said “that the military operation in Gaza must continue until victory, despite, but perhaps precisely because of, the opposition by Joe Biden’s government and the halt to arms deliveries.”

The extremist Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir posted on X the message that ‘Hamas loves Biden’. Minister Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz also support the operation in Rafah. “Israel has a duty, for our security and moral reasons, to continue fighting to free our hostages and contain the terrorist threat from Hamas,” the latter writes on X. “The United States has the moral and strategic obligation to provide Israel with the means to succeed in this mission.”