Biden’s decision to pull Israel weapons shipment kept quiet until after Holocaust remembrance address: report

The White House National Security Council reportedly sought to keep the decision to stop supplying U.S. weapons that Israel could use to launch an all-out assault on Rafah out of the public eye for several days until after President Biden delivered a public address for Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Biden signed off on the pause in an order conveyed last week to the Pentagon, The Associated Press reported, citing U.S. officials who were not authorized to comment on the matter. But the NSC wanted to keep the decision quiet until after it had a better understanding of the scope of Israel’s intensified military operations in Rafah and Biden delivered a long-planned speech on Tuesday to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day. The shipment was supposed to consist of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, a senior U.S. administration official told the AP on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

The focus of U.S. concern was the larger explosives and how they could be used in a dense urban area.

In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Biden said he would halt some shipments of U.S. weapons to Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a major invasion of the city of Rafah, the last major Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip. It was the first time Biden said he was prepared to condition American weaponry on Israel’s action in the seven-month-long war launched in response to the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.

"Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers," Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett. "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