President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (AP Photo)
The U.S. is also offering to provide thousands of shelters that would allow Israel to build tent cities, the report notes, and help create the delivery systems for food, medicine and water that would be needed to give the thousands of refugees that would flee the city more livable conditions.
The report comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to invade Rafah with "extreme force," a situation the U.S. would like to see avoided as President Biden balances support for the longtime U.S. ally with domestic pressure to draw a red line regarding Israel's current conduct in the conflict.
Rafah is the last city in Gaza that has not faced the devastation of the war, with Israel arguing an invasion is needed to finish off the last pockets of resistance from Hamas. But destroying the city's complex system of tunnels would likely put thousands of civilians in danger, causing the U.S. to push for Israel to implement an evacuation plan of the city before launching its campaign.
Israeli forces in the Shifa hospital, where troops eliminated armed terrorists in close-quarter encounters, cleared several buildings inside the hospital, and located many weapons in the MRI complex as well as on the rooftop of the hospital. (IDF Spokesmans Unit)
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While it remains unclear if Israel has heeded the U.S. warnings in the lead-up to a potential invasion, the report notes that private discussions between officials have resulted in assurances from Israel that its forces would not launch a full-scale invasion of Rafah before evacuating roughly 800,000 civilians from the city. On Sunday, the U.N. said that roughly 300,00 people had evacuated Rafah in the previous week.
Reached for comment by Fox News Digital, a U.S. official stressed that the U.S. was not holding back information on the locations of Hamas leaders, noting that the U.S. has been helping Israel target the locations of Hamas leaders.
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-administration-pushing-avoid-israeli-invasion-rafah-report