In statements to Al Jazeera, Barghouti also questioned Biden’s refusal to call for a cease-fire in Gaza, a region that has been under attack for 129 days. What I expected to hear from Biden is something we will never hear. His words about the imminent Israeli attacks over the southern city of Rafah should have been in complicity with Washington’s support for a cessation of fighting, he stressed.

Barghouti stressed that Rafah is the only area in Gaza that has not yet been completely destroyed.

“Israel never gave up its plan to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population,” that should have been opposed by the U.S. president, but it is not because the U.S. is participating in the attack,” Barghouti added.

During a phone conversation on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the US president implicitly gave the green light to launch a new phase of the war campaign over southern Gaza, home to 1.4 million of the enclave’s 2.3 million inhabitants.

“A military operation in Rafah must not proceed without a credible and executable plan to ensure security” for the population, Biden told Netanyahu, according to a statement released by the White House. The impending ground operation against an overpopulated area provoked a wave of international repudiation, including allies of Israel.

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