President Joe Biden’s decision to withhold bombs from Israel will cause more Israeli soldiers to die in booby-trapped buildings that would otherwise have been destroyed from the air, according to a military source in Israel.
As Breitbart News reported, the Biden administration confirmed this week that it had withheld 2,500-lb. and 500-lb. bombs, and would also withhold artillery rounds, in opposition to Israel’s decision to attack Hamas’s last stronghold in Rafah.
Israel, which views the defeat of Hamas in Rafah as a military necessity, has decided to continue its operation. But in order to avoid antagonizing Biden, or running out of bombs, Israel will have to send soldiers directly into buildings.
“Everything is rigged to blow [in Rafah],” a military source said. “We are being engaged in numerous buildings, and tunnels rigged in a manner we have not yet encountered. Hamas is organized, and was waiting ready for the IDF to enter Rafah.”
Hamas had plenty of time to prepare, after Biden’s opposition forced Israel to delay an operation in Rafah for three months.
Israel acted after Hamas refused to budge in hostage talks, and attacked the Keren Shalom border crossing, a key entry point for humanitarian aid. Four soldiers died in the attack and several more were wounded.
Since Monday, Israel has held the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, as well as the Philadelphi corridor road that runs along the Gaza-Egypt border. It has also undertaken limited operations against Hamas terrorists in Rafah.
On Friday evening local time, Hamas launched five rockets that reached the Israeli city of Be’er Sheva in the central Negev desert, marking the first such attack on the city in months, and underlining the need for the Rafah campaign.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) practice in Gaza has often been to identify buildings where Hamas has hidden, warn residents to leave, then bomb the buildings. Dozens of soldiers died earlier in the war in booby-trapped buildings.
IDF soldiers have engaged in more face-to-face combat in counter-terror operations in the West Bank during the war, where Hamas is not in control of the area and therefore has not operated with the same degree of freedom as in Gaza.
The IDF is prepared for a slow, methodical campaign in Rafah. But that also means Israel will have to accept a higher number of military casualties than it otherwise would have.
And it means many Israelis are angry at President Biden.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
