.The United States stated on Tuesday that Israel's actions in Rafah thus far do not constitute a "major ground operation" that would violate President Joe Biden's warnings.


By Chantal Da Silva, Monica Alba, Raf Sanchez, and Abigail Williams.


As Israeli forces advanced deeper into Rafah, following an airstrike that sparked a major fire and killed dozens of Palestinians, the White House stated that Israel had not crossed the Biden administration's "red line."


On Tuesday, Israeli tanks were seen entering central Rafah for the first time, amid growing international condemnation over the deaths in a crowded tent camp for displaced civilians. Concurrently, U.S. aid deliveries to Gaza by sea were suspended after damage to its temporary pier.


National Security Council spokesman John Kirby addressed reporters, affirming that the United States was not ignoring Israel's operations in the southern Gaza city, from which around 1 million Palestinians have fled in recent weeks.


Kirby explained that the Biden administration did not consider Israel's actions in Rafah so far to be a "major ground operation" that would breach President Joe Biden's warnings and necessitate a shift in U.S. policy, including a potential halt to weapons shipments.


“A major ground operation is, you know, thousands and thousands of troops moving in a maneuvered, concentrated, coordinated way against a variety of targets on the ground,” he said.


Similarly, a U.S. official told NBC News that while the deadly strike was viewed as a "horrific incident," it seemed to be the result of an airstrike gone "horribly wrong" and did not signify Israel "smashing into Rafah."


Earlier this month, Biden told CNN: “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah — they haven’t gone 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 — that deal with that problem."


When NBC News’ Gabe Gutierrez asked how Israeli tanks nearing central Gaza did not constitute a full-scale ground operation, Kirby said Israeli officials maintained that their tanks were moving along the Philadelphi Corridor, a strategic strip of land along the Egypt-Gaza border, and “not in the town proper.”


“That’s what the Israelis have said,” Kirby responded. “We’re going based on what the Israelis are telling us and what they’re saying publicly and what we’re able to discern, as best we can.”


By Chantal Da Silva, Monica Alba, Raf Sanchez, and Abigail Williams


Reporters grilled the White House at a briefing Tuesday.

Kirby's comments came just days after an Israeli airstrike ignited a fire in the Rafah's Tal al-Sultan neighborhood tent camp, killing at least 45 people, including children, according to local health officials.


Hala Rharrit, a U.S. diplomat and veteran foreign service officer who resigned from the State Department last month in protest of Washington’s policy on Israel’s war in Gaza, criticized the Biden administration's approach. She felt they were trying to "wiggle their way out of this latest shift" on what defines a “red line.”


“The point of the president saying population centers were a ‘red line’ is to avoid mass civilian casualties,” she said in a phone interview with NBC News on Wednesday. “Whether they’re going in by tanks or it’s happening via bombs coming from the air, are we really trying to mince words?”


The tent camp attack has increased international pressure after the United Nations’ top court ordered Israel to halt its offensive in Rafah. The U.N. Security Council might vote as early as Wednesday on a draft resolution by Algeria demanding Israel immediately stop its offensive and implement a cease-fire in Gaza, according to The Associated Press.


Israel submitted a new cease-fire proposal to Qatari, Egyptian, and American mediators on Monday, an Israeli official told NBC News. The proposal aimed for a “sustainable calm” but not a complete end to the war as Hamas demanded.


Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official, told NBC News on Tuesday that Hamas had not received any proposal from the mediators.


In a briefing on Tuesday, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Israel was still investigating the Rafah strike and what caused the fire that led to the tragic loss of life.


He stated that the IDF fired two 17-kilogram (37.5-pound) warheads targeting two senior Hamas militants. However, a fire was unexpectedly ignited. He suggested the possibility that weapons stored in the targeted area might have caused the fire but noted this was an "assumption" at this point. An Israeli and a U.S. official separately suggested that a fuel tank might have been struck, igniting the blaze.



The images from the strike have intensified pressure on the U.S. to respond.

During Tuesday’s White House briefing, when asked how many “charred corpses” President Biden needed to see before changing policy, Kirby expressed “offense” at the question, stating: “We don’t want to see a single more innocent life taken.”

The IDF has conducted a months-long ground offensive in Gaza, resulting in more than 36,000 deaths, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Israel launched the offensive following Hamas’ October 7 attacks, which killed around 1,200 people and took approximately 250 hostages, according to Israeli officials. About 125 hostages are believed to remain in Gaza, with roughly a third presumed dead.

On Wednesday, National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said on Israeli radio that "we still expect another seven months of fighting this year to deepen the achievement and accomplish what we define as the destruction of Hamas's governmental and military capabilities, without setting a stopwatch for ourselves."

Biden’s warning about the U.S. “red line” echoes former President Barack Obama’s use of the phrase in August 2012, when he warned against the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war.

Critics accused Obama of not acting when that boundary was crossed, with political opponent John McCain saying the Obama administration’s red line seemed to be “written in disappearing ink.”