WASHINGTON DC: For the first time since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, the Biden administration has paused the shipment of weapons to Israel amid mounting concern over its plan to expand a military operation in Rafah that the United States does not support.

The decision follows discussions with Israel on how it will “operate differently against Hamas there than they have elsewhere in Gaza,” a senior administration official said in a statement sent to VOA. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

A ground assault on Rafah, in the southern part of Gaza, would endanger the lives of 1.3 million civilians who evacuated from the north and central parts of the territory to seek safety from Israel’s military response to Hamas’ Oct 7 attack on Israel.

Administration officials have repeatedly said the U.S. will not support a Rafah invasion unless Israel provides a credible plan on how it would protect civilians.

In an April 4 phone call, President Joe Biden warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he would withhold military aid unless Israel changes its war conduct.

President Biden told CNN in an interview aired Wednesday night that the U.S. would continue to supply Israel with defensive arms, such as Iron Dome munitions.

“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah — they haven’t gone in Rafah yet — if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, that deal with that problem,” he said.

Deliberations on withholding arms began in April as Israel seemed closer to a decision on Rafah, the official said. Since then, the Israelis “have not fully addressed our concerns,” and the decision to pause the arms transfer was executed “last week.”

The shipment was supposed to consist of 1,800 2,000-lb. bombs and 1,700 500-lb. bombs.

The administration said it is mainly concerned with the “end-use of the 2,000-lb. bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza.”

The official said other equipment under review includes Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, kits that convert so-called “dumb bombs” into precision-guided munitions.

The paused shipments are drawn from previously appropriated funds, not from the supplemental appropriations that Congress passed in April.

“We are committed to ensuring Israel gets every dollar appropriated in the supplemental,” the official said, highlighting the recent approval of $827 million worth of weapons and equipment, the latest tranche of foreign military financing.

The pause marks the first time the U.S. leveraged a weapons transfer to influence Israel’s war conduct since Hamas’ October 7 terror attack.

(VOA)