Mr Biden hopes the pause will prompt Israel to change course.
WASHINGTON – The message was not getting through. Not through the phone calls or the emissaries or the public statements or the joint committee meetings. And so, frustrated that he was being ignored, President Joe Biden chose a more dramatic way of making himself clear to Israeli leaders. He stopped sending the bombs.
Israel’s plans to invade Rafah, the city in the southern Gaza Strip where more than 1 million Palestinians have taken refuge, have been a source of intense friction with the Biden administration for months. The Israelis maintain they need to go into Rafah to finish destroying Hamas while the Americans oppose an operation they fear would result in widespread civilian casualties.
Whether such a deal is possible remains uncertain. CIA Director William Burns, who has been deeply involved in the negotiations, met on May 8 with Mr Netanyahu in Jerusalem even as other officials conferred in Cairo about competing offers from the two sides. Reaching such a deal may be the only way to avoid a more serious rupture between Israel and the Biden administration, analysts said.
Overall, since World War II, the US has given more aid to Israel than any other country in the world. As of last year, the US had provided US$158.7 billion to Israel since its founding, the vast bulk of it, or US$124.3 billion, for its military and its missile defences, according to the Congressional Research Service. Under a 10-year memorandum of understanding sealed by President Barack Obama, Washington currently provides US$3.
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