Netanyahu, Israeli Officials Endure 7th Blinken Visit Since Oct. 7 as Rafah Operation Awaits

JERUSALEM, Israel – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli leaders Wednesday. It's his seventh visit since the start of the war in Gaza, and this time he's on a mission to stop Israel's next military operation. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed Blinken despite strong disagreements about the need for the Rafah incursion.

The challenge continues for the prime minister, meeting again with the highest foreign policy official in an administration that has actively sought to replace him.

Blinken has praised the latest Israeli offer of a ceasefire for the release of 33 Hamas-held hostages as "extraordinarily generous," and said it's up to Hamas to accept the agreement.

The White House objects to an Israeli military campaign against Hamas because it claims there isn't an adequate plan in place to protect Gaza civilians. Army Radio reported Wednesday that the IDF will declare a new "safe zone" for Rafah residents. 

On Tuesday, Netanyahu pledged to a group of parents of hostages and families of slain soldiers that Israel will go into Rafah "with or without a deal."

Despite U.S. pressure, a former Israeli national security advisor said the Rafah operation is essential to Israel's security to defeat Hamas' remaining battalions, secure the border, and rescue the hostages.

Former U.S. Envoy Ellie Cohanim came out of high-level meetings with Netanyahu advisors believing that invading Rafah is essential.

"Nothing could be more clear than the need for Israel to finally and fully eliminate Hamas and Hamas' military capabilities by entering Rafah and destroying the last battalions that exist there," she declared.

Some members of Netanyahu's coalition threatened to pull out of the government if it suspended the Rafah operation.

In the meantime, two Israel Defense Forces divisions are preparing for the Rafah incursion.

The International Criminal Court is considering arrest warrants for Netanyahu and other top Israeli military and political leaders. The prime minister called the potential move an "historic outrage."

"Branding Israel's leaders and soldiers as war criminals will pour jet fuel on the fires of anti-Semitism, those fires that are already raging on the campuses of America and across capitals around the world. It will also be the first time that a democratic country fighting for its life according to the rules of war is itself accused of war crimes. The Israeli army, the IDF, is one of the most moral militaries in the world," Netanyahu asserted.

Speaking on CBN's Faith Nation, Cohanim insisted, "The notion that the ICC would somehow try to come after Israeli officials rather than Hamas and Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran which is behind all of this terror and all of this war and killing in the Middle East – it's disgusting and there is no other word for it. It's a terrible hypocrisy. It's going to be a stain on the ICC." 

She added, "I do hope that the United States, the Biden administration, and our European allies are doing everything in their power to prevent such a travesty of justice."

In New York City, police swept onto the campus of Columbia University to arrest those protesters who seized a university building and barricaded themselves in.

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) blasted the university's administration and those of other prestigious institutions of higher learning for not taking earlier action and for not forcefully rejecting the antisemitism behind the protests.

"The world is watching as the leadership of our so-called elite colleges and universities continue to fail to condemn antisemitism and protect Jewish students on campus," Stefanik remarked.

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