Journalists, Aid Workers In Rafah Push Back On Biden's Claim About Israeli Ground Invasion

President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that Israeli forces have not yet launched an anticipated ground invasion on Rafah — a red-line move that he’d previously said would halt the U.S. supply of weapons to Israel. But as of Thursday, media reports and humanitarians suggest that a ground assault on Rafah had already begun.

In an interview with CNN that aired Wednesday night, Biden publicly admitted for the first time that Israel has used U.S. weapons to kill Palestinian civilians. The president also relayed a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: The U.S. will withhold shipments of offensive weapons to Israel if the military launches a full-scale ground invasion into Rafah that causes major civilian harm.

“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,” Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett.

“They haven’t gone into the population centers,” he added, of Israel’s movements.

But media reports dispute the Biden administration’s characterization of Israeli actions in Rafah as limited.

Amid the destruction caused by Israel’s Gaza offensive, 1.4 million displaced Palestinians have crowded into Rafah. Earlier this week, Israel dropped flyers ordering more than 100,000 Palestinians in the eastern part of the city to evacuate and flee to Khan Younis or Al-Mawasi — towns that do not have the infrastructure to support more refugees.

Biden, who spoke to Netanyahu on Monday, said that he “made it clear” to the prime minister and his cabinet that Israel will not receive “our support if in fact they go on these population centers.”

Satellite images that CNN obtained from Planet Labs show that Israel has expanded its assault on Rafah from airstrikes