Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel is prepared to "stand alone" in its war in Gaza, after Washington vowed to stop supplying some weapons if a threatened assault on Rafah goes ahead.
"If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone," Mr Netanyahu said in a statement.
The Israeli leader was reiterating comments he has made several times in the past week in the face of mounting international criticism of his conduct of the war against Hamas.
His latest comment came after US President Joe Biden warned in an interview with CNN yesterday that he would stop some US weapons supplies to Israel if it goes ahead with a large-scale assault on Rafah, where some 1.4 million people are sheltering.
Mr Netanyahu did not mention the US threat, but stressed in comments delivered on the eve of Israel's Independence Day, marking the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, that back then "we were few against many".
"Today we are much stronger. We are determined and we are united in order to defeat our enemies and those who want to destroy us," he insisted.
"We will fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than fingernails and with that same strength of spirit, with God's help, together we will win."
Analysts have said that they doubt the US move will have any immediate operational impact on the war.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari stressed this evening that the army had "enough weaponry to complete our mission in Rafah".
"The United States has helped us in an unprecedented manner since the start of the war," he said in a televised address.
"We have our own interests and we are sensitive to the US interests," he added.
Israel says truce talks over, Rafah operation to proceed
Earlier, an Israeli delegation submitted Gaza truce mediators with its reservations about a Hamas proposal for a hostage-release deal and deems this round of negotiations in Cairo to have ended, a senior Israeli official said.
The Israeli delegation is returning from the Egyptian capital and Israel will proceed with its operation in Rafah and other parts of Gaza as planned, the official added.
Israeli tanks and warplanes have already bombarded parts of Rafah, Palestinian residents said.
Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad said their fighters fired anti-tank rockets and mortars at Israeli tanks massed on the eastern outskirts of the city.
Residents and medics in Rafah, the biggest urban area in Gaza not yet overrun by Israeli ground forces, said an Israeli attack by a mosque killed at least three people and wounded others in the eastern Brazil neighbourhood.
Video footage from the scene showed the minaret lying in the rubble, two bodies wrapped in blankets and a wounded man being carried away.
On the city's eastern edge, residents said a helicopter opened fire, while drones hovered above houses in several areas, some close to rooftops.
Israel says Hamas militants are hiding in Rafah, where the population has been swelled by hundreds of thousands of Gazans seeking refuge from bombardments elsewhere in the coastal enclave, and it needs to eliminate them for its own security.
The Hamas delegation left the ceasefire talk in Cairo for Doha for consultations, blaming Israel for the lack of agreement so far
80,000 Palestinians flee again this week
Israeli tanks seized the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Tuesday, cutting off a vital aid route and forcing 80,000 people to flee the city this week, according to the United Nations.
"The toll on these families is unbearable. Nowhere is safe," the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said in a post on X.
Israel's United Nations ambassador Gilad Erdan said the US decision to pause some weapons deliveries to Israel would significantly impair the country's ability to neutralise Hamas' power, according to Israeli public radio.
But Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told Israel's "enemies and friends" it would do whatever necessary to achieve its war aims in Gaza, underlining the scale of the standoff.
Israel kept up tank and aerial strikes across Gaza and tanks advanced in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City in the north, forcing hundreds of families to flee, residents said.
The Israeli military said it was securing Zeitoun, starting with a series of intelligence-based aerial strikes on approximately 25 "terror targets".
Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza was heaving with people who had fled Rafah in recent days. Palestinian medics said two people, including a woman, were killed when a drone fired a missile at a group of people there.
