Turning Point or Breaking Point? Biden’s Pause on Weapons Tests Ties to Israel.

The message was not getting through. Not through the phone calls or the emissaries or the public statements or the joint committee meetings. And so, frustrated that he was being ignored, President Biden chose a more dramatic way of making himself clear to Israeli leaders. He stopped sending the bombs.

Mr. Biden’s decision to pause the delivery of 3,500 bombs to Israel was meant to convey a powerful signal that his patience has limits. While insisting that his support for the Jewish state remains “ironclad,” Mr. Biden for the first time since the Gaza war erupted last fall opted to use his power as Israel’s chief arms supplier to demonstrate his discontent.

The hold on the bombs represents a significant turning point in the 76-year-old relationship between the United States and Israel, historically one of the closest security partnerships in the world. But it may not necessarily be a breaking point. The Biden administration is still allowing most other weapons to be sent to Israel, and in fact officials emphasized that no final decision has even been made on the bombs that are currently in limbo.

Mr. Biden hopes the selective pause will prompt Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to forgo a long-threatened invasion of Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than one million Palestinians have taken refuge. The president has objected to such an operation out of fear that widespread civilian casualties could be caused by American bombs. He said on Wednesday that he would also block the delivery of artillery shells that could be fired into the urban neighborhoods of Rafah.

“I’ve made it clear to Bibi and the war cabinet, they’re not going to get our support if in fact they go on these population centers,” the president said in an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett on Wednesday, referring to Mr. Netanyahu by his nickname. “We’re not walking away from Israel’s security; we’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in those areas.”

He acknowledged in a way that he has rarely done that American bombs have killed innocent Palestinians. “Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” Mr. Biden said.