Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit back at President Joe Biden on Monday morning when he laid down his own red line in Gaza.
He has seen cracks appear in relations with his strongest ally as Biden has urged him to think twice before launching the next phase of his assault on the Hamas terror group in Rafah, one of the last places where civilians were able to shelter in the southern part of the country. edge of the Gaza Strip.
‘Look, it’s either Israel or Hamas. There is no middle ground. I mean, we’ve got to get that win,” he told “Fox and Friends.”
‘We can’t have three quarters of victory. We cannot have two-thirds of a victory because Hamas will reconstitute itself with these four battalions in Rafah, recapture the Gaza Strip and carry out the October 7 massacre again and again and again.
And for us, Israel, it is not only for me, but for the people of Israel, a red line. We cannot let Hamas survive.’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used an interview with ‘Fox and Friends’ to hit back at President Joe Biden on Monday morning for laying down his own red line in Gaza.
A man walks past posters with pictures of hostages kidnapped in the deadly October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas from Gaza in Tel Aviv, Israel
Netanyahu has seen world support for his offensive following the October 7 Hamas attack fade as the death toll in Gaza spirals past 30,000.
He is under intense pressure to allow more aid as humanitarian agencies warn that starvation is taking hold of a population battered by five months of war.
Biden initially stood with Netanyahu as his strongest supporter, supporting his war goal of destroying Hamas and arguing that a cease-fire would simply give the group a chance to rearm and reorganize.
But with other world leaders taking a harder line against Israel, Biden has seen the left wing of his own party revolt.
On Saturday, he warned Netanyahu that his approach undermined Israel’s own interests and drew a red line.
“(Netanyahu) has the right to defend Israel, the right to continue to pursue Hamas,” he told MSNBC in an interview.
“But he must, he must, he must pay more attention to the fact that innocent lives are being lost as a result of the actions.
‘He’s hurting, in my opinion, he’s hurting Israel more than helping Israel by doing the rest of the world… it’s the opposite of what Israel stands for. And I think it’s a big mistake.’
The president was asked if there was any ‘red line’ for his support for Israel, such as the invasion of the city of Rafah.
Displaced Palestinians shelter in a tent camp amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist terrorist group Hamas in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip
Israeli soldiers pray in front of an armored fighting vehicle in an area near the border with the Gaza Strip at an undisclosed location in southern Israel
“It’s a red line, but I will never leave Israel,” he said, refusing to cut off military sales to Israel.
His growing frustration with Netanyahu spilled out into the open two days earlier after the State of the Union address.
He was caught on a hot microphone describing how he had delivered harsh words to the Israeli leader. ‘I told him, Bibi, and don’t say it again, but you and I are going to have a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting,’ he could be heard saying.
Netanyahu, who heads a far-right coalition with a shaky grip on power, hit back in interviews with American media on Sunday and Monday.
Planes drop humanitarian aid over Gaza Strip as Israeli attacks and blockades continue to cause famine in Gaza City
Biden told MSNBC on Saturday that the Israeli prime minister is ‘hurting Israel’ by killing so many civilians
“We will do what is necessary to minimize civilian casualties, provide the humanitarian aid, something we believe in, but we have to destroy this terrorist Nazi army or there will be no future for anyone in the Middle East,” he said . promise not to ‘get off the gas’.
And he added that it made no sense not to move into Rafah, where he said a quarter of Hamas’ fighting force had sought shelter.
‘They are there in Rafah. This would be like saying, you know, after the Allies fought back, went through Normandy, went through Germany and you’d say well, we’re going to leave a quarter of the Nazi army in place, we’re not going to go into Berlin , the last stronghold, he said.
And he rejected Biden’s red line outright in an interview with Political. He said Israel Defense Forces would invade Rafah and that most of the Arab world supported the move.
“We’re going there,” he said. ‘We don’t want to leave. You know I have a red streak. You know what the red line is that October 7 doesn’t happen again. It will never happen again.’