Israel faces military, political obstacles in Rafah operation against Hamas, warns expert

By Rabia Ali

ISTANBUL (AA) – As Israel’s war on Gaza enters a fourth devastating month, Tel Aviv’s plans to extend its military operations to Rafah have raised fears of another offensive with deadly costs for Palestinian civilians.

Rafah, a city in the south close to Egypt’s border, is believed to be sheltering about 1.9 million Palestinians, most of them displaced from other parts of the Gaza Strip that have been facing intense Israeli attacks.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has warned that “intensified hostilities in Rafah in this situation could lead to large-scale loss of civilian lives,” reiterating that “under international humanitarian law, indiscriminate bombing of densely populated areas may amount to war crimes.”

Geopolitical analyst Ryan Bohl also believes that civilian casualties will be “inevitable” and “perhaps on a more notable level.”

“It’s going be very difficult for Israel to carry out military operations without causing civilian casualties even at their lower tempo that they’re carrying out right now,” he told Anadolu.

“The humanitarian aid corridor (from Rafah) will be disrupted again and that is already putting a lot of Gazans … at risk of famine, at risk of disease. That will increase those risks,” he told Anadolu.

Bohl said refugees cannot go back into the north as “there isn’t much more of a north to go to, and there has been no substantial reconstruction.”

According to him, the operation in Rafah could also be a much slower operation, resembling the one in Khan Younis, where he said “Israel has declared victory a little bit preemptively.”

- Why is Israel going into Rafah?

Bohl, senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at risk intelligence firm RANE, explained that Rafah is the last major city that is not under “some form of Israeli control.”

Israel also suspects that some Hamas leaders are there, he said.

Another reason for Israel’s ground assault is that it aims to take control of the Philadelphi Corridor, a demilitarized area between Egypt and Israel under a 1979 treaty, he said.

“They (Israel) also need to take control of the Philadelphi Corridor, where they would be able to control the border with Egypt,” he added.

Bohl believes this is being done to control “the smuggling that enables Hamas to keep fighting.”

That, however, will potentially lead to pushback from Egypt.

The Philadelphi Corridor “is supposed to be an area that remained under Palestinian control, civilian control, and the Egyptians aren’t exactly thrilled that the Israelis are going to be moving forces into that area,” he said.

Egypt wants to keep that area demilitarized and keep it as a corridor for Palestinian refugees, he said.

“The Egyptians are worried that, under an assault on Rafah, some Palestinian refugees will try to cross the border and there’s a possibility that Hamas or other militants blow holes in the border or open up some of their smuggling tunnels,” he said.

If Palestinian refugees start to appear on the Egyptian side of the border, it will be “a nightmare for the Egyptians because they don’t want to use force against these civilians,” he added.

Another reason is that “if Israel is going to carry out anything close to a pre-emptive war in Lebanon, it can’t be done until Rafah is secured,” he explained.

“One of the factors that matters for the Rafah operation is that once that’s complete, Israel will claim victory in Gaza and whatever forces they deploy – reservists or backup forces or occupation forces and the combat brigades that would fight Hezbollah – would then go north,” he said.

- For US, ‘political timeline has exhausted itself’

Bohl pointed out that Israel will face political challenges in its Rafah operation, including from its biggest ally, the US.

“The Americans would prefer there to be a cease-fire that would prevent there from being a full-scale assault on Rafah,” he said.

If a temporary cease-fire comes into force, there will be attempt to make it a permanent one, “through either getting Hamas to withdraw or surrender, or to carry out some other deal with the Israelis that would pre-empt a resumption of fighting after some months,” he explained.

As far as the US is concerned at this point, the “political timeline has exhausted itself,” he emphasized.

“We’re entering election season here in the US and this is a real concern for Biden,” said Bohl.

“The Americans want to bring the war to an end sooner rather than later, even if that’s short of Israel’s military objective of destroying Hamas.”

- ‘Israel has no military-only solution to Hamas’

The analyst pointed out the Israel has not achieved “any of their goals of replacing Hamas as a civilian administrator, or of replacing the security vacuum.”

One of the main goals that they have moved closer to achieving is the end of the rocket attacks, and have “exhausted, destroyed and disrupted Hamas rocket supply,” he said.

However, Hamas has shown signs of “resurgence in areas where IDF forces have withdrawn,” he added.

According to him, there are signs that Hamas has not been militarily defeated and “retains the capabilities to resurge as soon as the IDF leaves a territory.”

“This is a major problem for Israeli political strategy because they’re trying to claim that they have destroyed Hamas completely in these zones,” he said.

“The Israelis are going to be in a position where they are stuck occupying the Gaza Strip and they may end up in a situation where they’re having to send in forces regularly into the Gaza Strip … to fight again against the resurgence of Hamas over and over and over again.”

That could be the pattern, and when the Israelis are saying this could take months or even years, that is in a certain way Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitting that his “far-right partners are unwilling to come up with a comprehensive deal with the Palestinian Authority that would prevent that scenario,” he added.

The nature of modern warfare is that “Israel has no military-only solution to Hamas,” Bohl emphasized.

“It has to have a political solution, and until they have a political solution, Hamas fighters and bureaucrats will keep popping up in areas that the IDF has claimed that they have taken over right now,” he said.