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CBS Falsely Reported That Biden Warned Israel Against Rafah Operation
An UNRWA aid truck at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
On the Feb. 10 CBS Saturday Morning News broadcast, correspondent Deborah Patta falsely reported that the United States warned Israel against attacking Rafah, Hamas’ remaining stronghold in the south of the Gaza Strip.
In reality, the Americans warned Israel not to carry out an attack that did not take into account the more than one million Palestinians sheltering there. Contrary to CBS’ reporting, the American warning did not rule out an Israeli operation.
In her error-ridden reporting, Patta claimed:
Palestinians who fled to Rafah are bracing themselves for an Israeli military advance. National Security spokesman John Kirby has said this would be a disaster. … It’s been 126 days of war, one of the deadliest in modern history, almost 28,000 dead, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, nearly half of them are children. Utter misery everywhere you look. Prompting President Biden’s strongest rebuke of Israel yet, calling its conduct in Gaza “over the top.”
[President Biden]: A lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying, and it’s got to stop.
Reporter: But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stubbornly refuses to listen, instead ordering his military to evacuate civilians in Rafah ahead of a massive push there.
In his press briefing, Kirby did not call a potential Israeli military advance into Rafah a “disaster.” He called an Israeli military advance with no plans to safeguard civilians sheltering there a disaster. Here’s what he actually said:
I think you all know more than a million Palestinians are — are sheltering in and around Rafah. That’s where they were told to go. There’s a lot of displaced people there. And the Israeli military has a special obligation as they conduct operations there or anywhere else to make sure that they’re factoring in protection for — for innocent civilian life, particularly, you know, the civilians that were — were pushed into southern Gaza by operations further north — Khan Younis and North Gaza.
I could tell you that — absent any full consideration of protecting civilians at that scale in Gaza — military operations right now would be a disaster for those people, and it’s not something that we would support. [emphasis added]
Nor has President Biden warned Israel not to operate in Rafah. One day after Patta’s report falsely claiming a sweeping US warning against attacking Rafah, it was widely reported that President Biden warned Prime Minister Netanyahu to implement a strong plan to protect civilians before launching operations in Rafah. As Reuters reported (“Biden urged Israel’s Netanyahu to protect civilians in Gaza – White House“):
U.S. President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday that Israel should not launch a military operation in Rafah without a credible plan to ensure the safety of the roughly 1 million people sheltering there, the White House said. …
Biden also emphasized his view that “a military operation in Rafah just really cannot proceed without a credible and implementable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for the more than 1 million people that are now sheltering there,” the official said, adding that they simply had “nowhere to go.” [Emphasis added.]
Thus, far from “stubbornly refus[ing] to listen” to his American interlocutors, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was attentively listening when he ordered the military to devise a plan to evacuate civilians from Rafah.
Furthermore, contrary to Patta’s reporting, Netanyahu did not order “his military to evacuate civilians in Rafah ahead of a massive push there.” Rather, as was widely reported, he ordered the military to develop an evacuation plan.
Patta didn’t need to read The New York Times (“Netanyahu Orders Evacuation Plan…“) or CNN (“Netanyahu directs Israeli military to draw up plan to evacuate…”) for information on Netanyahu’s orders for an evacuation plan. CBS Morning Show host Jeff Glor himself accurately reported in the introduction to Patta’s very own segment (10 seconds in): “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his military forces to submit an evacuation plan for Rafah.”
Further pushing the erroneous reporting that the Israeli military has already issued evacuation orders, Patta claimed:
Our team in Gaza tells us that the Israeli military has given people several options, move to an already overcrowded part of Rafah, go to Khan Younis, which is still being bombed, or return to the north, which has been all but obliterated.
Finally, Patta’s assertion that Israel’s war with Hamas “is one of the deadliest in modern history,” with 28,000 reported dead, is patently false. (She fails to identify the figure’s source as Hamas, the designated terror organization that carried out one of the worse mass atrocities targeting civilians in recent memory on October 7.)
Israel’s current war with Hamas is hardly the deadliest in recent history even within the Middle East; Syria’s war saw 470,000 fatalities; 150,000 died in Yemen’s Yemen’s war; another 150,000 perished in Lebanon’s civil war; 500,000 lives were lost in the Iraq’s war with Iran; and 150,000 Iraqis died during the Gulf War. But those facts clearly did not matter to CBS or its reporter.
Tamar Sternthal is the director of CAMERA’s Israel Office. A version of this article previously appeared on the CAMERA website. This article was written with research by CAMERA Arabic.
The post CBS Falsely Reported That Biden Warned Israel Against Rafah Operation first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.