Israel’s Ambassador to the US, Michael Herzog, said on Thursday that it was "unacceptable" that the US decision to withhold some weapons from Israel became public while the two governments still were discussing Israel's planned offensive into the Gaza city of Rafah, Reuters reported.
Speaking at a webinar held by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Herzog said the US pause on some arms supplies to Israel "sends the wrong message to Hamas and to our enemies in the region."
Herzog said Israeli officials had been discussing a Rafah operation for weeks with US officials "and we told them point blank that we're not going to move automatically into the urban area without first developing a plan for the population and implementing" that plan.
"We told the administration that what we are going to do is not time based, it is conditions based and we showed them our plans," he added.
"I think it’s unfortunate that before we completed this discussion...things went out in public in the sense that, you know, 'Don't do Rafah and if you do we withhold certain weapons," Herzog said. "I might say as well it is unacceptable."
Herzog’s comments come two days after a US official confirmed that the US had paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on Rafah.
The shipment which was paused was supposed to consist of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, a US official told The Associated Press, with the focus of US concern being the larger explosives and how they could be used in a dense urban setting.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden warned that he would halt shipments of American weapons to Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.
Speaking to CNN, Biden said that while the US would continue to provide defensive weapons to Israel, including for its Iron Dome air defense system, other shipments would end should a major ground invasion of Rafah begin.
“We’re going to continue to make sure Israel is secure in terms of Iron Dome and their ability to respond to attacks that came out of the Middle East recently,” he said. “But it’s, it’s just wrong. We’re not going to – we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells.”
Netanyahu responded to Biden on Thursday, saying, "If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone. I have already said that if we have to - we will fight with our nails. But we have much more than our nails, and with the same determination, with God's help, we will win together," he said.