WASHINGTON \u2014 If President Joe Biden truly has a \u201cred line\u201d for the conflict in Gaza, Israeli officials likely have not come close to crossing it.<\/p>\n
The Biden administration\u2019s metric for what would amount to the crossing of such a line \u2014 and potentially lead Biden to switch off the spigot of American military aid to Tel Aviv \u2014 shows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet have a huge amount of leeway to continue air strikes, and even ground operations.<\/p>\n
That tactically sizable operating space was on full display this weekend, when an Israeli airstrike killed around 40 Palestinian civilians \u2014 many of them children \u2014 and in subsequent days as Israeli Defense Forces tanks rolled into Rafah. The southern Gaza city is where Netanyahu\u2019s government, which could soon face a vote on dissolving<\/a> the country\u2019s parliament and moving toward elections, initially instructed Palestinian civilians to flee. Now Israel contends there are Hamas operatives hiding among the refugees.<\/p>\n In recent weeks, amid reporters\u2019 repeated questions about Biden\u2019s own words about a limit to the civilian death toll he would tolerate and the administration\u2019s internal definitions of that \u201cred line\u201d and \u201cmajor ground operation,\u201d senior Biden aides have said Israel has not crossed the line.<\/p>\n John Kirby, White House national security communications adviser, has jousted with reporters about whether the weekend airstrike violated the \u201cred line\u201d Biden described in an interview with CNN earlier this month.<\/p>\n During a sometimes-testy Tuesday briefing \u2014 the lone scheduled televised one this week \u2014 Kirby kept steering reporters back to three words: \u201cmajor ground operation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe president has been very clear and very direct about what our expectations are for Israeli operations in Rafah specifically, but in Gaza writ large,\u201d he said as reporters challenged his contention of presidential and staff clarity.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t support, we won\u2019t support a major ground operation in Rafah and we\u2019ve again been very consistent on that. And the president said that should that occur, then it might make him have to make different decisions in terms of support,\u201d said Kirby, who then added the caveat that is driving the U.S. side\u2019s decision to keep sending bombs, artillery shells, ammunition and other military equipment to Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cWe haven\u2019t seen that happen at this point,\u201d he said of a large-scale military operation inside Rafah or the greater Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n Some Democratic lawmakers and experts have questioned why Biden has decided to continue supporting Israel amid more than 35,000 Palestinian civilian deaths, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry and the United Nations, which also reports another 81,000 wounded. Answers lie in the scope of recent Israeli strikes and troop movements inside the refugee-packed city and strip.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat a major ground operation entails, lots of units of, tens of thousands of troops, or thousands of troops, moving in a coordinated set of maneuvers against a wide variety of targets on the ground in a massive way,\u201d Kirby told reporters. \u201cThat\u2019s a major ground operation, pretty simple. I mean, it\u2019s not hard to discern that. I think it\u2019s very obvious what that is, and we have not seen them move in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n It has been Biden\u2019s own words about a possible \u201cred line\u201d and upending 76 years of U.S. policy that have clouded his policy for the conflict.<\/p>\n The president on May 8 told CNN \u201cOutfront\u201d anchor Erin Burnett during an interview in battleground Wisconsin that he had made clear to Israeli leaders that if they conduct military operations in \u201cpopulation centers\u201d inside Gaza, he might withhold U.S.-made heavy bombs. He later froze one shipment of those munitions.<\/p>\n \u201cI made it clear that, if they go into Rafah \u2014 they haven\u2019t gone into Rafah yet. If they go into Rafah, I\u2019m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, to deal with that problem,\u201d Biden told CNN. He also appeared to say the goal was to limit Israel\u2019s ability to go on offense in a big way inside Rafah, but not to defend itself.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to continue to make sure Israel is secure, in terms of Iron Dome [missile defense system] and their ability to respond to attacks like [the one that] came out of the Middle East recently,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n