Fighting flares across Gaza amid push to revive Israel-Hamas talks
Israeli troops are clashing with Hamas not only in Rafah, the militant group’s last stronghold, but also in the north of Gaza.
Fighting between Israel and Hamas intensified across the Gaza Strip on Monday, as mediators pushed for a resumption of talks to pause fighting and free hostages held in the strip.
Israel’s military conducted ground raids in the northern Gazan areas of Jabalia and Zeitoun, and fought Hamas fighters in the southern city of Rafah. The raids underscored comments by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday that Israel could face a prolonged insurgency even if it routs Hamas in Rafah.
Israel has pushed further into Rafah over the past week in what it calls a targeted operation to pressure the U.S.-designated terrorist group into a deal that releases hostages in return for a temporary cease-fire.
But the tactic so far has brought only more intense fighting, including in parts of Gaza where the Israeli military previously said it cleared militants. Cease-fire negotiations, mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the U.S., also have stalled.
Still, Arab mediators hope to narrow the gaps between the two sides and expect to reconvene in Doha, Qatar, this week, Egyptian officials said.
The fighting on Monday came as Israel marked its annual memorial day to remember fallen service members, and ahead of celebrations that commemorate the establishment of the country in 1948 and begin at sundown.
Israel is applying military pressure on Hamas in Rafah in an attempt to secure the release of hostages and aims to enter the city to destroy four of the group’s military battalions, Netanyahu said in a podcast recorded Sunday.
“We’re very close to achieving the destruction of the remaining Hamas battalions,” he said. “That’s a precondition for victory.”
About 130 hostages remain in Gaza from the 240 abducted by Hamas and other Palestinian militants in the Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,200 Israelis, according to Israeli authorities. Israel’s subsequent operation in Gaza has caused the deaths of 35,000 people, local health authorities say, figures that don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Since Israel began its targeted operation in Rafah last week, more than 300,000 Palestinians have fled the city and a deteriorating humanitarian crisis there has heaped fresh international pressure on Netanyahu to end the war.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant Sunday evening to reiterate U.S. opposition to a major ground operation in Rafah, where until last week more than a million people had taken refuge from fighting elsewhere in the strip.
President Biden also is threatening to hold up additional weapons sales to Israel if it continues to defy American concerns. When and whether Israel’s operation in Rafah constitutes a major ground operation is unclear.
The conflict is also creating major friction between Israel and Egypt, erstwhile enemies that signed a historic peace deal in 1979. Egypt on Sunday said it would intervene in support of South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice, citing concerns about the growing scale of Israel’s operations in Gaza.
As a result of the fighting in Rafah, the Egyptian crossing at the border city has largely been closed. Military positions near the other important gateway into southern Gaza, Israel’s Kerem Shalom terminal, have faced rocket barrages by Hamas. The Health Ministry in Gaza said Monday that a worsening lack of fuel meant it couldn’t power generators in hospitals and ambulances.
Egypt is blocking any humanitarian-aid trucks originating in its country from entering Gaza through Kerem Shalom, according to Egyptian officials. Cairo was angered that Israel gave it short notice before seizing the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing last week, and has threatened to cease acting as a mediator in the negotiations and suspend its peace treaty with Israel, the officials said.
Husam Badran, a senior Hamas official, said Sunday that Israel’s operation in Rafah was a “rebellion against the world.”
Given international pressure on Israel not to be too heavy-handed in Rafah, the country and its military face a difficult trade-off: Too much force and a high number of civilian deaths will elicit more condemnation and weaken Israel’s international position, but too little force may not defeat Hamas.
At present, “Israel is not pressuring Hamas enough to put them in a dilemma whether to release hostages,” said Amir Avivi, a former deputy commander in the Israeli military who oversaw operations in Gaza.
The only way to force a cease-fire deal, Avivi said, is to threaten Hamas existentially. The group is “not going to be threatened existentially without a massive incursion into Rafah,” he said.
The fighting elsewhere in Gaza has again highlighted how the seeming lack of an Israeli postwar plan for the strip is affecting the war. The U.S. has warned that Hamas would likely continue to fill the power vacuum until Israel brings in an alternative authority to the group. The U.S. wants a revitalized Palestinian Authority, which governs in the West Bank, to take control in Gaza. But Netanyahu has said he won’t accept it in the strip.
In the podcast Sunday, the Israeli prime minister suggested Israel was bracing for a long insurgency in Gaza. He said the military’s first job was to destroy the Hamas battalions at Rafah and “mop up” any other fighters. Israel would then have to demilitarize the strip and enter a period when Hamas would launch periodic attacks, “and that’s going to be a while,” he said.
Netanyahu in parallel said he hoped that Israel could work with local Gazans to manage civilian affairs with support from other Arab countries, an option Palestinian leaders have dismissed and some within Israel’s military have said is unrealistic.
“First, victory,” Netanyahu said. “There is no substitute for victory.”
Write to Rory Jones at Rory.Jones@wsj.com and Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com
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Business NewsGlobalFighting flares across Gaza amid push to revive Israel-Hamas talks
First Published:13 May 2024, 06:22 PM IST
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