Biden warns Israel US will halt weapons supplies if it invades Rafah

President Joe Biden has publicly warned Israel for the first time that the US would stop supplying it weapons if Israeli forces make a major invasion of Rafah in Gaza.

“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,” the US president said in an interview with CNN.

Biden’s comments represent his strongest public language to date in his effort to deter an Israeli assault on Rafah while underscoring a growing rift between the US and its strongest ally in the Middle East.

Biden acknowledged US weapons have been used by Israel to kill civilians in Gaza, and said the US was still committed to Israel’s defence and would supply Iron Dome rocket interceptors and other defensive arms.

“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” he said when asked about 2,000-pound bombs sent to Israel.

His comments come a day after it was revealed that the US had paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns it was pressing ahead to launch a full-scale ground invasion of the southern Gaza city.

The shipment was supposed to consist of 1,800 2,000lb bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs, according to a senior US administration official.

It was also reported that the Biden administration is reviewing whether to hold back future transfers, including guidance kits that convert so-called dumb bombs into precision-guided munitions.

Israel this week attacked Rafah, where more than one million Palestinians have sought refuge, but Biden said he did not consider Israel’s strikes a full-scale invasion because they have not struck “population centres”.

The interview was released hours after US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged publicly Biden’s decision last week to hold up the delivery of thousands of heavy bombs.

He told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defence that the US paused “one shipment of high payload munitions.”

“We’re going to continue to do what’s necessary to ensure that Israel has the means to defend itself,” Austin said. “But that said, we are currently reviewing some near-term security assistance shipments in the context of unfolding events in Rafah.”

Biden’s administration in April began reviewing future transfers of military assistance as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government appeared to move closer toward an invasion of Rafah, despite months of opposition from the White House.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, told Israeli Channel 12 TV news that the decision to pause the shipment was “a very disappointing decision, even frustrating.”

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 Biden has repeatedly warned against on humanitarian grounds.

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.

With agencies