Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) excoriated the Biden administration for pausing a military aid transfer to Israel due to their unfolding military operations in Rafah.
Graham was able to express his frustration with the administration’s decision on Wednesday during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Austin confirmed to the subcommittee that the administration has paused, but not canceled, a shipment of military aid to Israel due to their concerns over a Rafah operation.
The U.S. is “currently reviewing some near-term security assistance shipments in the context of unfolding events in Rafah,” he said, while Graham called the administration’s policy “obscene” and “absurd.”
“If we stop weapons necessary to destroy the enemies of the state of Israel at a time of great peril, we will pay a price. This is obscene. It is absurd,” the senator said. “Give Israel what they need to fight the war they can’t afford to lose. This is Hiroshima and Nagasaki on steroids.”
This specific aid package included thousands of bombs that could have devastating effects if used in densely populated areas, such as Rafah, according to the Washington Post. More than a million Palestinians have fled to Rafah from further north over the course of the war.
The U.S., along with several other Western governments and international entities, do not support an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah due to concerns that it could incur mass civilian casualties. Israeli leaders, however, have maintained their stance that they need to go into Rafah to complete their north-to-south sweep of the strip to ensure the lasting defeat of Hamas.
“We have not made any final decisions on this yet,” Austin added. “There are some things that we’re taking a closer look at.”
The Israelis had delayed their planned operations in Rafah at the behest of the United States as the Biden administration sought to persuade them not to go through with it, but to instead carry out tactical precise missions to avoid mass casualties.
“We’ve been very clear … that Israel shouldn’t launch a major attack into Rafah without accounting for and protecting the civilians that are in that battlespace,” Austin said.
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Israel’s military urged civilians in eastern Rafah to move to the Al Mawasi area on Monday, signaling their intention to begin operations against U.S. opposition. They have carried out some operations already in Rafah.
The administration’s decision to pause the aid package to Israel is the first time they have done so since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack prompted the current conflict. It marks one of the first deviations from the administration’s support for Israel since Hamas’s attack, despite months of urging them to do more to prevent civilian casualties.
“That is a strategic mistake for the ages,” Graham said in an appearance on Fox News a day before the hearing. “It makes terrorists more likely to keep fighting. It puts Israel at a very big disadvantage.”