US Department of State Spokesperson Matthew Miller spoke with the press on Thursday and discussed President Joe Biden's threat to stop weapons shipments to Israel if Israel would expand its operations in Rafah.
"What the President made clear is that we have concerns about a potential military operation in Rafah. I don't think that's a secret, we've been making those concerns known publicly and we made those concerns quite clear to the government of Israel. As the President noted there are certain types of military assistance that we will not make available to Israel for use in Rafah," said Miller
Regarding the IDF's current activities, Miller noted that "we have not yet seen an indication of a major military operation. It is something we're watching closely, the president made that clear."
The spokesman was challenged as to why the decision was already made to stop the shipments if Israel had not yet launched a major offensive. To this, he answered: "We paused one shipment and are reviewing others in the context of a potential operation, but again we hope there is no operation."
He further stated that based on the civilian death toll in previous stages and the war and the density of the civilian population in Rafah, "it leads us to believe that there will be incredible civilian toll and that's something we can't support."
Regarding comments that the President's threats harm Israel's stance in the hostage talks Miller stated: "That is not at all our assessment of the hostage talks. We actually think that a Rafah operation would weaken Israel's position both in these talks and at large. We've talked about this before a major military operation in Rafah would further weaken Israel's stance in the world. It would further create distance from its partners in the region. We actually share Israel's goal of seeing Hamas defeated and want to see Hamas replaced with a different government structure in Gaza."
He explained why, in the US's opinion, a Rafah operation would not be productive: "If you look at Hamas's track record, they have never cared about Palestinian civilian lives. If they did, they wouldn't have launched these attacks in the first place, which they knew would produce a response."