By Athena Papakosta

The deck is shuffled again. This time, the cards were dealt by the president of the United States, Joe Biden. For some, he pulled an ace up his sleeve. But for some others, they were just… the first to jump to conclusions.

The US president’s warning that there will be no more arms and ammunition deliveries from Washington to Tel Aviv if the Israeli Armed Forces launch a full-scale ground attack on the town of Rafah shows on the one hand that the patience of the United States is indeed being tested. and on the other hand, that the Biden administration chooses the pressure it has been exerting, for weeks, behind closed doors to make it clear and publicly.

With his message “to friends and enemies”, the Minister of Defense of Israel, Yoav Galand, chose to respond indirectly to the warning by the mouth of the American president, Joe Biden on the American network CNN. “The State of Israel cannot be contained (…) We will achieve our goals (…) whatever the cost.”

A few hours later, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, chose the show of force and defied the US president, stressing that “as I have said before, if necessary, we will fight ‘with nails and teeth’ but we have more than that.”

He was preceded by a related posting on the X platform, formerly Twitter, of an excerpt from a speech he gave on May 5 at Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, in which he declared that “no pressure, no decision from anyone (.. .) will not stop Israel from defending itself. (…) If Israel is forced to stand alone (then) Israel will stand, alone.”

At the same time, the delegations of Israel and Hamas withdrew from Cairo where the indirect negotiations to reach a ceasefire agreement are taking place. However, it remains unclear whether the talks have collapsed or frozen as fears mount that Israel’s invasion of Rafah will go ahead as normal.

US officials had expressed hope that progress would be made in the negotiations, as Hamas had agreed to the plan – a proposal it received from Egypt and Qatar. But Israel had expressed from the beginning that the terms – which remain, officially, unknown – did not satisfy its demands.

An Israeli official, who was not named, told the Reuters news agency that the Israeli delegation had expressed its misgivings and the talks in the Egyptian capital had ended. For its part, the White House confirmed that the head of the CIA, William Burns, is also leaving Cairo, but without confirming that indirect negotiations have collapsed.

The United States wants to prevent a large-scale ground offensive by the Israeli Armed Forces in Rafah and insists that it will not achieve Israel’s goal of neutralizing Hamas. In particular, with his new statements, the representative of the National Security Council of the White House, John Kirby, underlined that Israel “by crushing Rafah, will not advance this goal” and made it clear that “any large-scale ground attack will strengthen the position of Hamas in negotiation table”.

Israel, however, seems adamant and insists on the war with the spokesman of the Israeli Armed Forces, Daniel Hagari, emphasizing that “the army has ammunition for the missions it has planned. And about the missions to Rafa.”

The relationship with the United States is freezing. The gap widens and the war still rages.