On Tuesday, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan refuted a report published by Politico newspaper that said that US President Joe Biden is considering imposing conditions on military aid to Israel if it invades the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, which is inhabited by 1.5 million Palestinians.

"We will not engage in assumptions about what comes next, and reports that purport to describe the president's thinking are ill-advised speculation," Sullivan said at a news conference.

Any large-scale attack on Rafah would lead to a large number of civilian casualties, as most Palestinians in the city, which had a pre-war population of 275,000, are sheltering in tents on the streets.

An attack would also disrupt the small flow of aid into Gaza, as the only border crossing into Egypt is in the city, and Palestinians are starving to death in Gaza due to the Israeli blockade.

Sullivan also denied the idea that President Biden had set a red line for Israel. In an interview over the weekend, Biden indicated that the attack on Rafah was a red line, but he quickly backed away from that statement. “The president has not issued any statements, pronouncements or announcements,” Sullivan said.

Also on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again vowed to invade Rafah. “We will finish the job in Rafah while enabling the civilian population to get out of harm’s way,” he said in statements to the Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel lobbying group in the United States.

The US State Department said on Monday that Israel had not presented a plan to protect civilians if it invaded Rafah.

State Department spokesman Matt Miller said in his comment on a question asked by Al-Quds.com correspondent: “The government of Israel said that it will implement the humanitarian assistance plan, and we have not seen such a plan yet.”

To date, the massacre committed by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza has resulted in the deaths of more than 31,000 people, most of them women and children.

The United States has supported the massacre by approving more than 100 arms deals to Israel since October 7.