Amid growing tensions with the American president, Joe Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated yesterday his intention to storm the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.

Although the White House confirmed yesterday that it was not informed of any Israeli plans concerning Rafah, intense activity is underway behind the scenes to discuss how to respond to any Israeli move of this kind.

Considering the options
The Biden administration is considering several options on how to respond if Netanyahu defies the president's repeated warnings against launching a military invasion of the Palestinian city, where thousands of displaced people are crowded, without a reliable plan to protect civilians, according to a former American official and three current ones who revealed this to NBC network today, Saturday.

One official also revealed that Washington advised the Israeli government to avoid a large military operation in Rafah and instead carry out "counter-terrorism" missions.

Discussions are taking place amid increasing concern within the administration and frustration among Democrats in Congress over Tel Aviv simply ignoring Biden's appeals.

In this context, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen from Maryland said, "Biden repeatedly called on the Israeli government to take certain measures to protect Palestinian civilians, but Netanyahu repeatedly ignored them as well."

He also added that this behavior makes the United States appear weak.

This comes as the White House announced yesterday, Friday, that it wants to examine Israel’s plan regarding conducting a military operation in Rafah to ensure the protection of civilians, after Netanyahu confirmed that the small government approved the army’s plan to launch the attack on the city located in the extreme south of the Gaza Strip, which has become a refuge for hundreds of thousands fleeing the war.

Many international organizations and Western and Arab countries have repeatedly warned that any attack on Rafah, which is crowded with about 1.4 million displaced Palestinians, would cause a greater catastrophe.

The United Nations also warned that there is no safe place in the entire Gaza Strip, and thus Rafah’s displaced cannot be moved, noting that the talk about this matter is a kind of fantasy, in reference to the hint of several Israeli officials led by Netanyahu that a plan to evacuate civilians has been prepared.

It is worth noting that despite the tensions between Biden and "Bibi" as he calls him, Washington continues to affirm that it is Israel’s closest ally, and it has previously denied placing any restrictions on the arms shipments it delivered to Tel Aviv and the ways they can be used, despite the pressures Biden faces from his Democratic electoral base that expressed dissatisfaction in polls over his failure to push for a ceasefire, despite more than 5 months having passed since the outbreak of the war, and the rise of the number of Palestinian civilian deaths to more than 31,000.