An Israeli assault on Rafah was meant to wipe out Hamas’s remnants but that looks like a forlorn hope.
Benjamin Netanyahu is under renewed pressure from a US administration deeply concerned about the operation he has ordered in Rafah. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has complained about Israel’s lack of a post-war plan and warned that Hamas is “coming back” in other parts of Gaza.
So what? It is. Israeli troops are fighting again in Jabalia in northern Gaza, where they say Hamas is reassembling its units seven months into the war.
An estimated 300,000 Palestinians have meanwhile fled Rafah despite having no safe place to go. The UN says the city is on the brink of famine. Desperately needed aid trucks are being held up at the border crossing seized by Israel’s military last week and its main hospital has been evacuated.
Options. Netanyahu’s consciously Churchillian rhetoric about “standing alone” in the face of international pressure cannot conceal the tough choice he has to make. His options include:
- a full scale ground, air and artillery assault against Hamas’s remaining battalions;
- testing Biden’s patience and playing for time by continuing to launch lethal air strikes and ground incursions while stopping short of a full scale invasion; and
- performing a dramatic U-turn and agreeing to end the war to secure a deal with Hamas to release the 132 hostages it still holds.
Risks. The third is the least likely. The first is made more likely by pressure from the right. Without an assault on Rafah, Netanyahu’s two most extreme ministers, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, might leave his coalition, precipitating the election he fears.
But there are countervailing factors:
- A complete rupture with the Biden administration would halt further supplies of weaponry on which Israel has relied since October 7.
- Massive civilian casualties – adding to a total Palestinian death toll put by the Hamas health ministry at over 34,800 – would intensify the threat of international arrest warrants for senior political and military leaders, including Netanyahu himself.
- There’s extreme scepticism, including in Western governments, that the four remaining Hamas battalions targeted by Netanyahu would be eliminated by such an operation or are even all still in Rafah.
Odds. Hopes of a ceasefire flickered briefly last Monday when Hamas announced its acceptance of a hostage release deal brokered with US help by Egypt and Qatar, subsequently rejected by Israel.
But it’s doubtful that further military pressure will force Hamas to compromise on its main differences with Israel over the meaning of “sustainable calm” in the deal’s draft text – whether it means an end to the war, as Hamas’s leader Yahya Sinwar wants and Netanyahu doesn’t.
Known unknowns:
- The border. What is Israel doing at the Gaza-Egypt border? The Israeli military took the Gaza-Egypt crossing last week ensuring that Hamas cannot control the Palestinian side. But there’s surprise in allied capitals that it didn’t move to take over the entire Philadelphi line between Egypt and Gaza which might have helped it to destroy tunnels used by Hamas to import arms.
- The hardliners. Would Ben Gvir and Smotrich necessarily resign if Netanyahu held off from a full scale invasion of Rafah? Might they instead decide that by staying in office they could continue to promote de facto annexation of the West Bank, while sustaining Netanyahu in power until what they hope will be Donald Trump’s re-election?
- The day after. How long can Netanyahu refuse to discuss a credible plan for the “day after” including a role for the Palestinian Authority, which almost all Western and Arab governments envisage? American officials have long been asking, but now Netanyahu’s top officers are too.
Israel’s military chief of staff Herzl Halevi reportedly told Netanyahu at the weekend that as long as there was no diplomatic process to develop a new governing body in the Strip “we’ll have to launch campaigns again and again in other places to dismantle Hamas’s infrastructure. It will be a Sisyphean task.”
Such realism seems a far cry from Netanyhau’s forecast of “total victory”.
What’s more… Informed estimates suggest that fewer than half the 132 hostages may now be alive.