The United States believes that a major military operation in Rafah it will weaken Israel’s position in truce talks with Palestinian Hamas militants, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Thursday.

Washington continues to work with Israel on amendments to a cease-fire proposal submitted by Hamas, Miller said, adding that work was continuing to finalize the text of an agreement but that the work was “incredibly difficult.”

“We actually believe that an operation in Rafah would weaken Israel’s position both in these negotiations and in general. We have talked about this before, that a major military operation in Rafah would further weaken Israel’s position in the world, would cause further distance from its partner in the region who actually share Israel’s goal of seeing Hamas defeated and want to see Hamas replaced with a different governance structure in Gaza,” the US official said.

“In terms of the talks themselves, we continue to work with the Israeli government on the amendments to the proposal that Hamas submitted earlier this week. We continue, we continue to work to try to complete the text, and I’ll just say that any effort like this it’s incredibly difficult” Miller noted characteristically.

“We continue to work with them (Israel) on other options that they can pursue… We have presented a full range of other policy options that they can make that we believe will achieve the goal of dismantling Hamas and strangling Hamas factions that remain in Rafah without endangering the civilians there, without causing this massive displacement of population without having anywhere to go,” he added.

Israel has threatened a major attack in Rafah to defeat the thousands of Hamas fighters it says are there, but more than a million people have taken refuge in the city, with the United Nations warning of a humanitarian catastrophe. An Israeli official told Reuters that negotiations had ended and the operation would continue.

Israeli forces tasked with destroying the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas seized the main border crossing between Gaza and Egypt at Rafah on Tuesday, cutting off a vital aid route to the enclave, where malnutrition is a major humanitarian problem.

“We will fight tooth and nail”

Tough answer to Joe Biden allegedly given by Benjamin Netanyahu according to Israeli media, after the American decision to “block” ammunition to Israel if the military operation in Rafah takes place.

At the same time, as it became known after the delegation of Hamas and the Israeli delegation withdraws from the talks on the cease-fire agreement in Cairo, without a fixed date for her return to the Egyptian capital.

The Israel expressed its “reservations”. on a proposal for a hostage release agreement, and considers that this round of negotiations in Cairo on the cease-fire in Gaza it has finished, a senior Israeli official told Reuters news agency on Thursday.

The Israeli delegation is returning from the Egyptian capital and Israel will proceed with its military operation in Rafah and other parts of the Gaza Strip as planned, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

On Thursday, Netanyahu even released footage of his speech at Yad Vashem earlier this week, in which he declared that Israel will stand alone against Hamas if necessary.

“Today, we again face enemies who seek to destroy us,” Netanyahu said in the video posted on X, from a Holocaust Remembrance Day event in Jerusalem. “I say to the leaders of the world – no pressure, no decision from any international forum, will prevent Israel from defending itself.”