Netanyahu says will ‘fight with our fingernails’ after US threat to curb arms

ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:

• The US has expressed its concern over a credible plan to safeguard the people in Rafah and said it did not support an invasion into the southern Gaza city. On the other hand, Israel has argued that a victory in the seven-month-old war was impossible without major achievements in Rafah.

• In a video statement, Netanyahu said if required, Israel “would stand alone”, in a statement widely seen as a veiled rebuff to the US’s warning to curb arms to the Israeli military.

  “If we must stand alone, we shall stand alone. If we must, we shall fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than our fingernails, and with that strength of spirit, with God’s help, together we shall be victorious,” he said.

• On Thursday, the White House sought to downplay Biden’s warning to withhold weapons from the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) over its Rafah offensive and said its position did not mean that the US won’t abandon Israel.

  “Any kind of major Rafah ground operation would actually strengthen Hamas’s hands at the negotiating table, not Israel’s. That’s our view,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told CNN in an interview.