U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday that Israel risks further global isolation if it attacks the Palestinian city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip.

Gaza health authorities said.

“We share the goal with Israel, which is to defeat Hamas… However, launching a large-scale ground military operation in Rafah is not the way to achieve that goal,” Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv.

“It has the potential to kill more civilians, it has the potential to cause greater disruption to the delivery of humanitarian aid, it has the potential to further isolate Israel around the world and jeopardize its long-term security and standing,” Blinken added.

Netanyahu earlier said Israel would go it alone if Washington remained opposed to plans to advance the territory’s southern border fence toward Rafah, where more than a million Gazans are sheltering in makeshift shelters.

The Israeli leader said he told Blinken he appreciated U.S. support for the fight against the Palestinian militant group Hamas and that Israel recognized the need to protect civilians.

“I also said we can’t defeat Hamas without getting into Rafah and eliminating the remaining battalions there. I told him I hope we can do it with the support of the United States, but if we have to — we’re going to do this alone,” he said in a video statement to reporters.

While Israel has talked about completely destroying Hamas in the past, it’s unclear how they would do that, and experts doubt it’s even possible.

Israel claims Rafah is the last bastion of Hamas militants and plans to evacuate civilians ahead of the attack, but has not yet made the plan public or shared with close ally Washington.

Washington said a ground attack would be a mistake and would cause too much harm to the displaced people there.

Senior Israeli and U.S. officials are scheduled to meet in Washington next week, where the United States is expected to present Israel with alternative ways to pursue Hamas without a full-scale attack on Rafah.

White House spokesman John Kirby told a news conference that “we believe a large-scale ground attack would be a mistake” and would be a “disaster.”

The United States is Israel’s closest ally, providing billions of dollars in annual military aid and regularly using its diplomatic clout to protect Israeli interests.

In the latest diplomatic showdown at the United Nations Security Council, Russia and China vetoed a U.S. resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a hostage agreement between Israel and Hamas, saying it effectively gave a green light for Rafah’s invasion.

The text reflects a toughening of Washington’s stance on Israel – which had opposed the use of the term “ceasefire” early in the war – but Moscow and Beijing say it still will not do enough to restrain Israel.

They backed an alternative text that Washington said was insufficient to spur continued diplomatic action by Hamas. Hamas last week released its own proposal for a ceasefire and hostage prisoner exchange. France is also said to be working on an alternative resolution. The Security Council is scheduled to vote again on Saturday.

Hamas said in a statement that it applauded the vetoes of Russia and China, which “rejected U.S. plans that favor aggression against our people.”

In Gaza, Israel claimed on Friday it had killed or captured hundreds of Hamas militants during a five-day operation at the Shifa hospital complex, one of the few partially functioning medical facilities in the north. Hamas and medical personnel deny there are militants there.

Tensions

Tensions between the United States and Israel have become increasingly public, with President Joe Biden calling Israel’s actions in Gaza “going too far” and saying they were taking a huge toll on civilian lives.

The war was triggered by an attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages, according to Israeli statistics.

U.S. officials say the amount of aid delivered by land needs to increase quickly and that the aid needs to be sustained over the long term.

Israel, which inspects all shipments to Gaza and has closed a fence in the north of the enclave, denies restricting food and says it believes enough is getting through.

“As far as we know, based on our analysis, there is no hunger problem in Gaza. Sufficient amounts of food are coming into Gaza every day,” Colonel Moshe Tetro, director of Israel’s Gaza Coordination and Liaison Authority, told reporters.

This is contrary to reports from international experts, who have warned of severe food shortages in parts of the Gaza Strip and that mass deaths are imminent.

Airstrike kills eight

On Friday, eight people were killed in an airstrike on a house in Nasser, east of Rafah. Video images showed crowds of mourners surrounding the body in a white shroud, while a red rag doll lay among the rubble of the crushed house.

Mourner Turkiah Barbakh said the dead included a father, a mother and their five children.

“They were children; they didn’t resist or do anything. What happened to them was unjust,” she said. “How much longer are we going to have to endure this?”

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said on Friday that civilians in Rafah had no safe exits. It is unclear where in Gaza the civilians will go or whether neighboring Egypt will accept them.

A meeting in Doha on Friday is aimed at securing a ceasefire. The truce talks centered on a proposal for a six-week pause in fighting, during which some 40 hostages held by Hamas would be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails.

Israel is only prepared to halt the fighting temporarily, while Hamas wants a permanent end to the war.