Despite President Joe Biden's threat to withhold offensive weapons from Israel, he will make sure the Jewish state has what it needs to defend itself, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday.
"Nobody has been a stronger supporter of Israel than Joe Biden," Sullivan said. "He has sent an enormous amount of capability for Israel to take on Hamas. Secondly, the president has made clear, he's going to continue to make sure Israel has what it needs to defend itself, full stop, four square, that will happen."
However, Sullivan said, Biden "has concerns about a full-scale military invasion of Rafah ... because there's a million people there in very close quarters who have been pushed there because of the military operations in other parts of Gaza."
Sullivan said this means that "you would have really significant civilian casualties. And while Israel would also be able to kill some Hamas folks, many Hamas folks would melt away because they're terrorists. They're not really organized fighters in the way that we think about a typical military."
The White House national security adviser emphasized that "in that context [Biden] doesn't want to see American weapons used in that kind of operation. That's not to say that he is going to abandon Israel or cut them off from weapons. He was focused on a particular operation that he doesn't believe will succeed in defeating Hamas and that will cause grievous harm."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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