Israel plots a Rafah strike to hurt Hamas and reduce conflict. Four officials familiar with the plan said that Israel plans to keep up full-scale military operations in Gaza for another six to eight weeks as it gets ready to invade the southernmost city of Rafah.
Two Israeli and two regional officials who asked to remain anonymous so they could speak freely said that military leaders think they can do a lot of damage to Hamas’s remaining capabilities by that time. This would allow for a shift to a phase of lower-intensity targeted airstrikes and special forces operations.
There isn’t much chance that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government will listen to the criticism from around the world and stop a ground attack on Rafah, said Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence officer who was also a negotiator in the first and second Palestinian uprisings in the 1980s and 2000s.

“Rafah is the last bastion of Hamas control and there remain battalions in Rafah that Israel must dismantle to achieve its goals in this war,” he said.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Friday that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were planning operations in Rafah to target Hamas troops, command centers, and tunnels. He did not say when the operations would happen, though. He said that “extraordinary measures” were being taken to make sure that no civilians were hurt.
Also, he told the press, “There were 24 regional battalions in Gaza; we have taken down 18 of them.” “Now, Rafah is the next Hamas centre of gravity.”
The IDF hasn’t said how it plans to move more than a million people inside the enclave’s destroyed walls.
Two anonymous sources in the field of foreign help and Israeli security said that Gazans could be checked to see if they were Hamas fighters before being sent north. Another source in Israel said that Israel could also build a mobile dock north of Rafah so that hospitals and aid ships from other countries could come by sea.
In any case, a defense officer for Israel said that Palestinians would not be able to return to north Gaza in large groups. Instead, they would have to live in tents in the sand around Rafah. They also said it wouldn’t be safe to move a lot of people to a northern area that doesn’t have power or running water and hasn’t been cleared of leftover ordinance.
Washington is not sure. Several officials who know what the two governments have been talking about said that Israel has done enough to make sure that civilians can leave safely. Biden said on Friday that he didn’t think Israel would soon launch a “massive” land attack.
The Hamas group also says that Netanyahu’s promised total win won’t come quickly or easily.
Reuters talked to a Hamas source in Qatar who said that the group thought it had lost about 6,000 fighters in the four-month war. This is about half of the 12,000 fighters Israel says it has killed.
The source, who asked to remain anonymous, said that Gaza’s ruling group is ready for a long war in Rafah and Gaza and can keep fighting.
The choices Netanyahu has are hard, and so are ours. He can take over Gaza, but Hamas will still be there and fight. He still hasn’t killed the Hamas leadership or wiped out the group, he said.

“NO EMPTY SPACE IN RAFAH”

On October 7, 2011, Hamas started the war when its forces broke out of the Gaza Strip and into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 253 prisoners. After the surprise attack, Israel launched a major airstrike and ground raid that killed over 28,000 Palestinians.
Israel has turned a lot of Gaza into rubble. There is still fighting going on in the city of Khan Younis in the south, and there are also random fights happening in otherwise safe places in the north.
It is now home to more than 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people. Most of those who had to leave have found protection in Rafah, which had about 300,000 people living there before the war.
“Over a million and a half people are here, so there is no empty space in Rafah.” Does everyone know that? This is where a massacre will happen if the tanks come in, said Emad Joudat, 55, who fled from Gaza City with his family early in the war. He ran a furniture business in Gaza City.
“I am in charge of a big family,” the father of five said. He lives in Rafah, in a tent city that doesn’t have food or water. “I feel helpless because I don’t know where to go with them if Israel launches an invasion.”
Egyptian officials have closed off their border with the region. Cairo doesn’t want Palestinians to be moved from Gaza because it’s part of an Arab movement against any repeat of the “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” of 1948, when 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced to leave their homes during the war that led to the creation of Israel.
Three security sources in Egypt told Reuters that Egypt is still setting up a border area that could house Palestinians in case Israel attacks Rafah and forces people to flee across the border, but they did not want to be named because the matter is sensitive.
The Egyptian government said they were not making any such plans.
Israeli Defense Minister Gallant said that Israel had no plans to send innocent Palestinians to Egypt.

“Major Promise to Sacred Victims”

Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence officer and mediator, said that the only thing that could stop Israel from attacking Rafah is if Hamas gives in on hostage talks and gives back the prisoners it took on October 7.
“Even that would only delay the advance on Rafah unless it is coupled with the demilitarization of the city and the surrender of the Hamas battalions there,” he said.

A top security source in the region said that Israel thought some Hamas leaders and prisoners were in Rafah.
To end the war, Israel would pull its troops out of Gaza, Hamas would free all Israeli hostages, and the talks would last for four and a half months. This month, after weeks of talks, Hamas suggested a ceasefire.
Netanyahu said the offer was “delusional” and turned it down. The United States, Egypt, Israel, and Qatar held new peace talks in Cairo on Tuesday, but they did not reach a decision.
According to U.S. sources, the best way to make room for bigger talks is for senior American officials to work out a deal to free the remaining prisoners in return for a longer break in the fighting. However, they are worried that such a deal might not happen in the next few weeks and that the war will continue into the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in March and April. This could make people around the world criticize Israel’s campaign even more, they said.
A broad deal to end the fighting doesn’t look likely any time soon.
“Any attempt to form a post-war government in Gaza could only succeed if it has Hamas’ approval,” say several people in the area, including members of the militant group and the Palestinian Authority, which Hamas drove out of Gaza in 2007.
Still, something has to give.
Jerusalem has promised to get rid of Hamas. Hamas and regional officials say that the boss of the group in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, will fight to the death rather than give up or leave the area.
Israel also doesn’t want any deal that includes a stable ceasefire or a Palestinian state, even though the U.S. and other countries are pressuring them to do so because of the suffering of civilians in Gaza and the lack of progress toward a real peace solution.
Antony Blinken, who is Secretary of State for the United States, has been to the area five times since October. The US State Department said last month that it was “actively pursuing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state” with security protections for Israel and was talking with friends in the region about possible solutions.
David Cameron, the foreign secretary of the UK, also told lawmakers that his country and its partners “will look at the issue of recognising a Palestinian state, including at the UN.”
Like almost 140 other U.N. countries, Israel, the U.S., and Britain have not officially recognized Palestine.
But Netanyahu and many other Israeli leaders see talk of a two-state settlement as betraying the people who died on October 7.