US President Joe Biden's threat to halt US arms shipments to Israel if it goes ahead with a long-planned ground invasion of the city of Rafah in the besieged southern Gaza Strip has “shaken US and Israeli policy, forcing Israel to recalibrate its next steps in its war against Hamas.” And expanding its scope, there is a division on this issue among members of Congress,” according to the Washington Post newspaper.

Biden's statements, which he made on the "Erin Burnett Front" program on CN.net on Wednesday, were the first time that the president threatened to withhold US military aid to Israel since it began its war on Gaza seven months ago. The red line drawn by the president (newly) sparked negative reactions from Republicans - including former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee that Biden will face next November 5, and mixed reactions from Democrats, who were divided over how the United States should respond to the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza.

Biden said on Wednesday that he would halt US offensive weapons shipments to Israel — acknowledging that such weapons have been used to kill civilians — if the country goes ahead with its invasion of Rafah, a city in southern Gaza that is home to more than a million Palestinians, many of them. Some of them fled their homes amid the war.

For his part, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) expressed surprise at Biden's comments in an interview on Wednesday with Politico Playbook, saying he hoped the president had carefully considered his decision to halt arms shipments to Israel.

"My reaction was, frankly, this is a complete turnaround from what I was told, even in the last hours, you know; I mean, just 24 hours ago, senior administration officials assured me that policy toward Israel has not and will not change," Johnson told Politico.

Johnson added that he would have felt betrayed if Biden had not simply been “off script.”

“For the administration to make this huge policy shift without any consultation with us, you know — and in defiance of what we voted on literally here days ago — that raises a lot of concern to me,” he said.

Trump took advantage of this issue on Thursday morning, describing Biden's move as "disgraceful."

“If any Jewish person votes for Joe Biden, they should be ashamed of themselves,” Trump told reporters outside the New York courtroom where his criminal trial over his secret funds is taking place. “Biden has completely abandoned Israel, and no one can believe it.”

Trump has previously attacked Jewish voters who vote for Democrats, saying that he believes “they hate Israel.”

“Any Jew who votes for Democrats hates his religion,” Trump said in March.

Trump's comments rely on the familiar anti-Semitic trope that American Jews have a dual loyalty to Israel.

Biden has long indicated his unwavering support for Israel in the military war on Gaza, which was sparked by an attack carried out by Hamas on October 7 that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people in Israel, including 311 soldiers, according to official Israeli statements, and 250 others were taken hostage. But in recent months, Biden has faced increasing political pressure over his administration's handling of the conflict, as the Palestinian death toll has risen to more than 35,000, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, and an Israeli blockade has created appalling humanitarian conditions in the Strip.

As the campaign season heats up, Biden has become increasingly politically beleaguered over Israel, under pressure from Republicans and some fellow Democrats who are pushing him to remain steadfast in support of the country, and his party's activist base, which has pushed him to the condition. Or suspend military aid completely.

While Biden and his senior aides have tried in recent months to reach a ceasefire agreement that would halt the fighting for several weeks and provide for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas, Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead with the Rafah invasion regardless of whether an agreement is reached.

Since the war began in October, Biden has faced protesters at almost every public event, and even at his home in Delaware, prompting him to pretend to withdraw his support for Israel. Students on universities across the country have also set up camps and barricades inside their campuses, to pressure their universities to cut off any relations with Israel.

Representative Mike D. said: Rogers (R-Ala.), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a joint statement that they were dismayed that the administration had “halted vital weapons shipments to Israel,” stressing that “This disastrous political decision was made in secret and deliberately hidden from Congress and the American people.”

“While Israel continues to negotiate in good faith to secure the release of hostages, including American citizens, the administration’s short-sighted strategic blunder calls into question its ‘unwavering commitment’ as an ally,” Rogers and McCaul continued.

Reaction has been divided among Democrats, with some Israel advocates within the party, such as Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), both loyal to the Israel lobby AIPAC, expressing disappointment in the administration.

“As the leader of the free world, America cannot claim that its commitment to Israel is ‘iron-solid’ and then proceed to withhold aid to Israel,” Torres wrote on X. “The mixed messages make a mockery of our credibility as an ally. No one will take our word for it.”

However, more liberal lawmakers who had previously called for a ceasefire in Gaza praised the move. Biden's shift "makes the world safer and our values clearer," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote in an X post. In a statement, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called the president's decision a "first step."

Sanders continued: “The United States must now use all its influence to demand an immediate ceasefire, an end to the attacks on Rafah, and the immediate delivery of massive amounts of humanitarian aid to people living in despair.” "Our influence is clear. Over the years, the United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel. We can no longer be complicit in [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's horrific war against the Palestinian people."

Multiple polls continued to show Biden and Trump, their parties' presumptive presidential nominees, locked in a close race for the upcoming November 5 election. A CNN poll conducted late last month showed that Biden's handling of Israel's war on Gaza (against Hamas) was the issue on which he received his worst approval ratings, with 28% of respondents saying they approved of it, while 71% said They don't agree to it. (Among those under 35, disapproval jumped to 81 percent, according to the poll.)

However, the same poll also showed that most Americans placed the Israeli military operation in Gaza low on their list of electoral priorities, with only 26% saying the war was an “extremely important” issue. By contrast, 58% of voters said protecting democracy was very important. More than 40% of voters described several other issues — including immigration, crime, gun policy, health care and abortion — as similarly important, according to the poll.

The groups have organized voters to cast protest ballots against Biden in some state primaries in recent months, including the battleground state of Michigan — where about 101,000 "disengaged" people voted in February's Democratic primary.

Intense pro-Palestinian protests at dozens of universities across the country in recent weeks have led to police crackdowns and the arrest of more than 2,000 people, according to a Washington Post tally. After remaining largely silent on the unrest, Biden addressed the demonstrations last Thursday at the White House, denouncing the violence and destruction of property, while also emphasizing that Americans have a constitutional right to peacefully protest.

It is noteworthy that Biden said on May 2: “We have all seen the pictures [of protests on university campuses], and they have put to the test two basic American principles. The first is the right to freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly and declare their rights, and the second is the rule of law. We must adhere to "Both things."

The White House denied at the time that Biden had addressed the issue of stopping weapons due to political pressure.