Following Monday’s vote, Jerusalem announced that “in light of the change in the American position, Prime Minister Netanyahu decided that the delegation will not depart.”
Kirby denied a shift in US policy in abstaining from the nonbinding ceasefire resolution. There is no reason for there to be an escalation of tensions between America and Israel, he said.
“Nothing has changed about our policy—nothing,” Kirby said. “We still want to see a ceasefire, and we still want to get hostages out—all of them. And we would still want to see more humanitarian assistance get in to the people of Gaza. The reason we abstained is because this resolution text did not condemn Hamas.”
Kirby also denied that there has been a change in the way the Biden administration talks about the potential Israeli military operation in Rafah, from asking to see a “credible plan” to rejecting the operation outright.
“We said weeks ago that we believe a major ground operation in Rafah would be a disaster, absent any proper accounting for the safety and security of the refugees that are still there,” Kirby said. “We still believe the same thing.”
“I don’t see any change in the rhetoric,” he said. “We don’t support a ground operation into Rafah.”
