During congressional testimony on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken denied that the Biden administration had offered to share additional intelligence with Israel if it refrained from launching a military operation in Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip.
In an exchange with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Blinken said Washington is giving Israel all of the information it has about the whereabouts of Hamas leaders and did not offer any quid pro quo regarding Rafah.
“Did the administration offer to provide the locations of senior Hamas leaders to Israel if they didn’t invade Rafah?” Cruz asked.
“That’s totally misleading and wrong,” Blinken said. “If we had the locations, we, of course, would provide them.”
Asked if the administration has intelligence on the locations of Hamas officials that it has not shared with Israel, Blinken replied simply: “No.”
“To the contrary, we’re providing everything we possibly can to Israel to help them find and deal with them,” he said.
Blinken also denied that the administration had offered anything else in exchange for not going into Rafah.
“We’ve offered them nothing not to invade Rafah except a plan to deal more effectively with Rafah,” Blinken said.
Cruz’s questions were based on a Washington Post report on May 11 that the United States had offered Israel intelligence and supplies in exchange for limiting any military operation in Rafah amid the administration’s concerns about Palestinian civilian casualties.
“The Biden administration, working urgently to stave off a full-scale Israeli invasion of Rafah, is offering Israel valuable assistance in an effort to persuade it to hold back, including sensitive intelligence to help the Israeli military pinpoint the location of Hamas leaders and find the group’s hidden tunnels,” the Post reported.
The White House previously denied the Post report and told Fox News it was “not holding anything back.” But Blinken’s testimony on Tuesday was the clearest denial from a senior administration official that there had been any material offered to the Jewish state in exchange for eschewing a full-scale military operation in Rafah.
‘What more needs to be done’
Blinken, who was testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also faced criticism from the left over the administration’s Israel policy.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said the administration should not have issued its report to Congress concluding that Israel was in compliance with U.S. requirements for continued arms transfers.
“I think calling this state of affairs ‘sufficient cooperation’ with U.S. humanitarian effort,” said Kaine, “demeans the credibility of the administration. I think you should have said you’re not getting a passing grade on this and then laid out what more needs to be done.”
Blinken’s testimony was repeatedly disrupted by anti-Israel protesters, who were immediately ejected from the hearing room by Capitol security.
