After the US warns to stop supplying arms, Netanyahu declares, “We Will Fight with Our Fingernails.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that his country was ready to fight in Gaza “stand alone,” after Washington’s pledge to withhold certain arms in the event that the planned attack on Rafah materializes.

In a statement, Netanyahu said, “If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone.”

In response to growing international criticism of his handling of the battle against Hamas, the Israeli prime minister was restating remarks he has made several times in the last week.

His most recent statement followed US President Joe Biden’s warning in a CNN interview on Wednesday that if Israel proceeds with a major attack on Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where the UN estimates that 1.4 million people are seeking refuge, he will cut off certain US arms supplies to that country.

In remarks made on the eve of Israel’s Independence Day, which commemorates the conclusion of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, Netanyahu emphasized that “we were few against many” at the time and did not address the US threat.

“We are a lot stronger now. He emphasized, “We will beat our adversaries and those who want to harm us because we are unified and committed to doing so.

“We’re going to fight with our nails.” But we are far stronger than our fingernails, and we shall triumph together with God’s assistance and that same spirit of power.

According to analysts, there is little chance that US action will have an immediate operational influence on the battle.

The Israeli army had “enough weaponry to complete our mission in Rafah,” Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said late on Thursday.

In a televised speech, he said, “The United States has helped us in an unprecedented manner since the start of the war.”

He said, “We are cognizant of US interests in addition to our own.

Over 1,170 Palestinians, largely civilians, lost their lives in Hamas’s historic October 7 strike on Israel, which marked the start of the Gaza conflict, according to an AFP assessment of Israeli government numbers.

Approximately 250 captives were also taken by militants; of them, Israel believes that 128 are still in Gaza, including 36 who are believed to be dead.

The health ministry of the Hamas-run enclave in Gaza reports that at least 34,904 individuals have died as a result of Israel’s retaliatory operation; the majority of them were women and children.