Twenty-six House Democrats led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer told National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Friday they were “deeply concerned” about President Biden’s decision to withhold military aid from Israel.
Gottheimer (D-NJ) and the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Sullivan obtained by The Post that “withholding weapons shipments to Israel … only emboldens our mutual enemies, including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other Iranian-backed proxies.”
“Seven months after October 7, the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the end of the Holocaust, Iranian-backed terrorist proxies continue to fire rockets and mortars into Israel and at Americans from all directions,” they wrote. “At the same time, antisemitism is spreading globally like wildfire.”
Biden, 81, in a CNN interview on Wednesday announced the pause on the US-supplied arms to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war effort if their military forces moved forward with an invasion of Rafah, the last stronghold of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“I made clear that if they go into Rafah — they haven’t gotten into Rafah yet — if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, to deal with that problem,” he told CNN’s Erin Burnett.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Thursday that the paused shipment included 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs.
“He does not want certain categories of American weapons used in a particular type of operation in a particular place,” she said. “We have to make sure that we protect those 1.5 million civilian lives [in Rafah].”
“We are especially focused on the end use of the 2,000 pound bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza,” she added. “We have not made a final determination on how to proceed with this shipment.”
Netanyahu, in a video message on Thursday that did not mention Biden, said, “If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone.”
The House Democrats said the president’s decision “buttresses” the Iranian terror proxies “agenda of chaos, brutality, and hate, and makes a hostage agreement even harder to achieve.”
Hamas kidnapped 240 people during its Oct. 7 invasion of Israel that massacred 1,200 Israelis and 33 US citizens in the Jewish state.
More than 130 remain hostages in the Gaza Strip — including five Americans who are not known to be alive or dead.
More than 30,000 Palestinians have also been killed in the dense urban warfare, according to figures provided by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between terrorists and civilians.
“Stalling these shipments will allow terror groups to continue stealing humanitarian aid, ultimately putting innocent Palestinians at even greater risk,” the Democrats also said.
“As the President confirmed after October 7, Hamas must be ‘eliminated entirely,’” they added, reminding Biden of his other commitments to America’s closest ally in the Middle East early in the war.
“When we abandon these duties, we leave a vacuum of American leadership for our anti-democratic adversaries to fill,” the members declared.
Gottheimer and the other Democrats requested a classified briefing to discuss the matter further and receive assurances for when the $17 billion in military aid for Israel passed by Congress last month “will be delivered.”
A spokeswoman for Sullivan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
