“It’s something he’s definitely thought about,” said one of the officials, who like the others, was granted anonymity to speak freely.

Biden has given varying indications of how he feels about future weapons sales to Israel. Last year, he called the idea of conditioning military assistance a “worthwhile thought.” In a weekend interview, he said that he would continue sending arms to the country, particularly the Iron Dome missile defense system that protects against Hamas rockets. But in that same interview, he said that mass civilian casualties in Gaza was a “red line” for him.

“You cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead,” Biden told MSNBC.

The Biden administration has used a bevy of diplomatic tactics to influence Israel. A movement toward conditioning aid could be another way to get Israel to shift its thinking about a broad Rafah campaign.

National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement to POLITICO that “we are not going to comment on speculation by anonymous sources or add to what the president said this weekend.”

But asked about Biden’s willingness to tie aid to future Israeli actions, White House deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton said “he thinks that there are other approaches which we have taken and are taking that are more effective.”

“I don’t think that it’s productive to assign a ‘red line’ sort of terminology to what is a very complex set of policies,” she told reporters aboard Air Force One. “You’ve seen the president be very vocal and forthright about what we think about the situation on the ground and what needs to happen from here.”

Shanna Kirschner, a professor of Middle Eastern politics at Allegheny College, noted how past administrations, including Republican ones, conditioned aid to Israel over policy disagreements. “If the situation continues, and it continues at the rate that we’re at right now, then that’s something that you have to consider,” she said.

The future of additional military aid has become less clear as Biden and Netanyahu’s relationship continues to sour.

Early in the war, Biden pursued a hug-in-public-push-in-private strategy with Israel, hoping that would allow the U.S. to maintain sway with Netanyahu and his far-right government. But Israel continuously rejected the White House’s advice by pursuing an all-out military campaign to root Hamas out of Gaza, one that has led to widespread shortages of food, water, medicine and other supplies in an enclave of 2.2 million people.

But as Biden has grown more openly critical of Israeli operations, Netanyahu has moved only marginally. The Israeli prime minister on Sunday told Axel Springer, POLITICO’s parent company, that his forces would move into Rafah, despite the president’s warnings.

“We’ll go there. We’re not going to leave them. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn’t happen again. Never happens again,” he said.

An Israeli military official, who like others was granted anonymity to detail a sensitive dynamic between the U.S., Israel and their leaders, said a Rafah invasion wasn’t imminent. Civilians still need to be evacuated and forces prepped before going into the city on the Gaza-Egypt border, the official added, confirming an operation couldn’t begin today even if Netanyahu gave the order.

Israel still has not shared a “credible and implementable” plan to protect civilians in Rafah with the Biden administration, a fifth U.S. official confirmed. The U.S. wants to see one before it gives an implicit green light to Israel’s advance.

Experts on the U.S.-Israel relationship tracking the war said the delay could help Hamas, which uses tunnels and time to their advantage. They also note Israel has already shifted to lower-intensity, more-precise military operations, including going into the tunnels to kill or capture Hamas militants.

Biden’s animus toward Netanyahu was palpable even before the retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people. Biden publicly denounced Netanyahu’s plan to overhaul the Israeli judiciary and privately suggested that the prime minister was acting “like a criminal,” comparing his efforts to former President Donald Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election, according to two other officials familiar with the president’s views but not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations.

Biden’s opinion of Netanyahu has only plummeted since then. As far back as late October, Biden’s top aides began privately discussing what a post-Netanyahu Israel would look like, believing that the security failures of Oct. 7 would eventually lead to the prime minister’s ouster.

After his State of the Union address, in which Biden did again resolve to support Israel while promising to get more aid into Gaza, the president was caught on a hot mic saying that he was soon going to have a “come to Jesus” moment with Netanyahu. And then Biden went public this weekend with his fear that Netanyahu’s prosecution of the war was irrevocably damaging Israel’s standing in the war.

“He has a right to defend Israel, a right to continue to pursue Hamas, but he must, he must, he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken,” Biden said in the MSNBC interview. “In my view, he’s hurting Israel more than helping Israel. It’s contrary to what Israel stands for, and I think it’s a big mistake. So I want to see a cease-fire.”

A pause in fighting is vital for Biden who is dealing with an intense political blowback from progressives, who have called for a permanent cease-fire and an increase in civilian assistance of Palestinians in Gaza. Top Biden administration officials flew to Michigan to meet with the state’s large Arab-American and Muslim-American population about the U.S. policy toward the war. That did little to assuage progressive and pro-Palestinian concerns in the state, as more than 100,000 people voted “uncommitted” in Michigan’s Democratic presidential primary as a measure of protest.

The administration counters that a full stop to the war helps Hamas. U.S. officials assert that they have pushed Israel to let in more aid, getting Netayahu’s government to open more land crossings. Biden’s team wants more assistance to get in, leading the U.S. to airdrop packages of aid and now having the military build a temporary port for Gaza.

“He needs to change the pictures in Gaza,” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East peace negotiator, said of Biden. As for Netanyahu, Miller, who is now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said “he’s desperate, not just because of his trial, but he knows full well that when the war winds down, the pressure is going to mount on determining who was responsible” for the Israeli failure to prevent Hamas’ attack.

Biden, in the weekend interview, did not rule out giving a major public address on the war to create distance between himself and Netanyahu, perhaps by speaking before Israel’s legislative body, the Knesset. The White House has no plans for such a dramatic gesture, which was first reported by POLITICO in February.

Should Israel invade Rafah, which most analysts say would happen after Ramadan, the biggest question for Biden on conditioning aid would remain: Would that compel Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza?

“He cannot do that without the active cooperation and coordination with the government of Israel,” said Miller.

Lara Seligman contributed to this report.