Israel puts pressure on the US: supply weapons or accept more Palestinian civilian deaths

The statement comes after the United States paused the supply of precision weapons to Tel Aviv. A member of the ruling Likud party said this in a television interview.

Tally Gotlive, a lawmaker from war Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party, told Israel’s Channel 7 that Israel has the “right” to “defend itself” and that it will use what it has. “Maybe instead of using a precise missile to take down a specific building, I’ll use my imprecise missiles, and just destroy ten buildings. That’s what I’ll do.”

Gotlive’s statement comes after US President Joe Biden said in an interview on CNN on Wednesday that he had paused arms supplies to Israel because of its offensive in Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip where some 1.6 million displaced Palestinians have sought shelter for the bloody Israeli violence. “I have made it clear that if they go into Rafah, I will not provide the weapons that have historically been used to address that problem,” Biden said.

Biden acknowledged that US weapons have been used to kill civilians in Gaza and added that Israel’s actions in Rafah have not yet crossed “red lines” that would prompt him to review his Gaza policy.

Genocide
US-backed Israel has been carrying out a deadly offensive on Gaza since October. Nearly 35,000 Palestinians have been killed and 80,000 others injured, mostly children and women. Nearly nine in ten residents are displaced and suffer from a lack of food, water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In a preliminary ruling in January, this World Court ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and to stop obstructing international humanitarian aid to the suffering civilians in Gaza.

In a new ruling at the end of March, the ICJ again ordered Israel to allow emergency aid facilities to Gazans.