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Israel has seized control of the Rafah border crossing. The consequences could be devastating for civilians.

Since the beginning of Israel's war in Gaza, Palestinians have been pushed farther and farther south. At least 1.3 million people have now been squeezed into Rafah, a small area bordering Egypt. More than half of those people fled fighting in other parts of Gaza.

On Monday, Israeli forces dropped leaflets from the sky in Rafah instructing people to seek refuge in an "expanded humanitarian area" north and northwest of the city. The U.N. says now more than 75% of the Gaza Strip is under evacuation orders.

US officials are making clear today that the hold put on a delivery of US-made bombs last week would not be a one-off if Israel presses ahead with an offensive on Rafah city but would be the start of a major pivot in the US-Israel relationship.

Arms deliveries that have already been approved could be delayed, and shipments waiting for approval could also face obstacles.

The Biden administration refuses to use the phrase “red line”, but it is making clear that the US president was serious when he told Benjamin Netanyahu in a call on 4 April that an attack on Rafah would lead to a major re-evaluation of the relationship.

Although the paused shipment included huge 2000lb bombs, administration officials insist that they were not selected because of legal concerns about their use in a densely populated area (as Israel has done frequently over the course of this war) could constitute a war crime. This was a policy decision, they say, not a legal one.

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US officials have signalled to Israel that more arms shipments could be delayed if the Israeli military pushes ahead with an offensive in Rafah, Gaza, in what would mark the start of a major pivot in relations between the two countries.

Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, confirmed on Wednesday that the Biden administration had paused the supply of thousands of large bombs to Israel, in opposition to apparent moves by the Israelis to invade the city.

“We’ve been very clear … from the very beginning that Israel shouldn’t launch a major attack into Rafah without accounting for and protecting the civilians that are in that battle space,” Austin told a Senate hearing.

“And again, as we have assessed the situation, we have paused one shipment of high payload munitions,” he said, adding: “We’ve not made a final determination on how to proceed with that shipment.”

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The United States has repatriated two dozen western citizens, half of them Americans, from Islamic State prison camps in north-eastern Syria where tens of thousands have languished.

The operation is the largest ever of US citizens and comes as rights groups warn of dire conditions in the camps still in use some five years after the ultra-violent extremist movement lost its last territory in Syria.

In a complex operation involving US agencies, Kuwait and pro-US Kurdish fighters, the United States repatriated 11 US citizens, including five minors, as well as a nine-year-old non-US sibling of an American, the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Tuesday.

The United States in the same operation facilitated the repatriation of six Canadian citizens, four Dutch citizens and one Finnish citizen, eight of them children, he said.

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