What did Biden say about US arms transfers to Israel and what does it mean?
Al Jazeera
Biden’s warning to Israel of a possible weapons cutoff is vague, experts say, but could mean the end of ‘blank cheque’ policy.
United States President Joe Biden has faced months of growing pressure to stop sending weapons to Israel as the US ally wages war in the Gaza Strip.
Rights advocates, lawmakers and protesters across the US have demanded an end to the transfers, warning the president that the arms were being used in human rights violations and war crimes in Gaza.
This week, senior Biden administration officials confirmed that Washington had paused one shipment of “high payload munitions” to Israel over concerns about the Israeli military’s planned offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Biden himself appeared to go a step further on Wednesday evening, telling CNN that he would not be “supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah” if Israeli forces go into “population centres”.
But what exactly did Biden say, what do his remarks mean in practice and what do experts say should come next?
