Gaza: Does Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu have the nerve for a military operation in Rafah or is it a ruse to achieve other goals?
Is Israel about to go into Rafah and will it be a manoeuvre too far?
There is certainly a huge amount of talk about it. But is it all talk? Does the Israeli prime minister have the nerve to go ahead or is it a ruse to achieve other goals?
Rafah is important to Israeli ambitions in Gaza – it is the area directly adjacent to the border with Egypt.
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That’s significant for a number of reasons. The ground below is riddled with tunnels that are the only way for Hamas to smuggle weapons, apart from the sea.
Above ground, it is now where a huge number of displaced Palestinians have moved to in order to escape the fighting.
A military operation there will kill a lot more of them on top of the thousands already dead – it’s thought there are at least 10,000 children among them.
But it is also where a lot of Hamas fighters and commanders are believed to be holed up.
This is a reasonable conclusion since there are fewer and fewer areas left that are safe for them now in Gaza and because they have a predilection for hiding among and below civilian masses.
There is a military logic, therefore, to going into Rafah, but the diplomatic fallout will be immense.
The White House says it would be “disastrous” as things are currently planned, the UK has warned Israel to think twice, and Egypt has threatened to suspend its decades-long peace agreement with Israel if it follows through with the plan.
Reports from Israel suggest the operation is not yet imminent.
This is primarily based on the estimated troops’ strength likely to be required for such a manoeuvre. Reserve units that have been sent home in recent days would need to be replaced and that takes time.
There is also speculation that the threat to go into Rafah is a ruse.
Polls suggest Israeli PM deeply unpopular
Benjamin Netanyahu is a wily operator. He knows acting big against American pressure plays well with his voters.
It’s a tactic he has employed time and time again and he desperately needs shoring up in polls that show him to be deeply unpopular.
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Other commentators in Israel suggest he is looking for an excuse, an alibi, someone to blame when he has to end the Gaza operation without securing the total victory he has promised throughout this war.
“I desperately wanted to cut off the head of the snake in Rafah,” he could tell Israelis. “But our American patrons and allies in the region made that impossible.”
This would be a familiar manoeuvre from him too.
This could also just be psychological warfare. The Israelis have desperately wanted to claim a scalp, the death or capture of a key Hamas commander, but they have slipped through their hands like Gazan sand at every turn.
Threatening to move in on Rafah puts pressure on the likes of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and may be an effort to flush him out of his cover.
As ever in any Middle Eastern war, all is not what it seems.
Israel may have a plan for Rafah and could be testing the water; or it may be opting for tactics and psyops instead.
Either way the truth for the civilians of Gaza trapped in this wretched war with little food, aid or shelter, is more terrifying uncertainty over where the bombs will fall next.