Analysts and observers agree that the Al-Qassam Brigade’s strike against Israeli occupation force (IOF) positions at the Karam Abu Salem crossing in Rafah, killing four IOF soldiers and wounding at least nine others, was no ordinary military operation. It was a powerful message to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because it narrowed his options.
Either he can go for a deal with Hamas leading to a durable ceasefire or he can invade Rafah. In a sense, the Palestinian resistance organisation is daring Rafah to play what may be his last card, exposing his inability to achieve his ends in his campaign to prolong his personal war. Will the invasion of Rafah hasten Netanyahu’s demise?
For weeks, Netanyahu has been waving the threat to invade Rafah, whether for negotiating or propaganda purposes. Now, if he does not act on it, his coalition partners among the ultra-right religious Zionists will accuse him of cowardice and caving into Hamas.
If he does proceed with the invasion, massacring thousands more civilians, he will trigger international outrage against him and his government, many of whose lies have already been laid bare to global public opinion.
The Palestinian political analyst Nidal Khadra pointed out that, only some weeks ago, Netanyahu had rejected most Palestinian demands, including the return of the displaced Gazans to their homes and the withdrawal of the occupation force. But now his list of “Nos” has been reduced to one: no ceasefire.
“This sums up Netanyahu’s political reputation today. He has had to climb down from his maximalist positions and tell [US Secretary of State Antony] Blinken that he accepts all the resistance’s conditions except an end to the war.”
As for why Netanyahu drew the line there, Khadra said: “Because this is addressed to his supporters from the Zionist right. That’s his electoral base. He wants to appease them while preparing them for a ceasefire.”
Khadra believes that an invasion of parts of Rafah is still on the cards because his coalition partners, the current National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and the current Finance Minister Bezalal Smotrich, explicitly threatened to resign if Netanyahu does not proceed with the invasion.
“This would bring down his government, which is what is keeping him out of prison. So, he would want to protract the war for a while, during which the IOF would invade some parts of Rafah, and then wind down the hostilities.”
On the other hand, Khadra believes that various factors reduce the likelihood of an invasion. One is the domestic disputes in Israel, especially over the Israeli hostages in Gaza. Another is global public opinion, which is adamantly opposed to an Israeli military incursion in Rafah. Even some Western officials, including Blinken, have voiced opposition to such an operation.
Faced with such pressures, Netanyahu has had to perform some deft footwork and balancing acts. Part of this has involved indulging talk of the so-called “day after” and an imposed solution to the Palestinian question. In this regard, the Gaza Seaport has surfaced in the framework of the creation of a demilitarised pseudo state based in Gaza with extensions in the Palestinian islets in the West Bank.
In return for allowing the creation of that entity, Israel would be integrated into the region. A weakened Hamas would somehow play a role in any future solution. S
uch scenarios have provoked the ire of Ben Gvir and Smotrich who see them as indicative of Netanyahu’s policies of capitulation, deception, and misinformation. Major General (ret.) Yitzhak Brick, one of Netanyahu’s close advisers, seems to back them up.
He described the recent withdrawal of most Israeli ground forces from Gaza as tantamount to a surrender to Hamas and a feeble attempt to save face after the failed operation in Gaza. In an article in Maariv in April, Brick wrote: “Continuing the war in the Gaza Strip, which lost its objective a while ago, is the guaranteed path to further disintegration of the state… It’s better to preserve our military achievements in the Gaza Strip so far than lose them.
The opposite is true; the more we continue fighting in Gaza, the deeper we’ll sink into the muck. ‘Destroying four battalions in Rafah’ and ‘completely undermining Hamas’ is the biggest lie in the history of Israel’s wars, a lie they [the government and military] are selling us. We are now standing on the edge of the abyss, and if we continue to stand by and believe the fake news our leaders are spreading, there will be no recovery or way back soon, and we will lose the state for another 2,000 years.”
On Hamas’ position, Hani Al-Dali, a researcher and expert on Hamas affairs, told Al-Ahram Weekly, “Hamas cannot sign an agreement that does not include a clause calling for an end to the war.” Referring to this clause, he said, “a possible compromise or work-around might be to get countries such as Turkey, China or Russia to guarantee that Netanyahu would not resume the war after securing the release of all Israeli hostages.”
Al-Dali adds, “it is clear that Hamas is dealing with the negotiations in a constructive and flexible way so that the Egyptian proposal can succeed, as it covers all the main principles and the interests of the Palestinian people.”
Noting that the proposal included provisions regarding the return of displaced persons, reconstruction, and the Natzarim corridor, he attributed Israeli concessions on these points to “the steadfastness and persistence of the people of Gaza, the grassroots incubator of the resistance whose recent operations, which included precision mortar strikes against the Natzarim line, inflicted significant losses among the IOF.”
Nevertheless, Hamas suspects that Israel and the US are scheming to engineer a single-stage temporary ceasefire, instead of a three-stage process leading to a permanent ceasefire. Their purpose, Al-Dali said, is to secure the release of all hostages and to remove that bargaining card from Hamas’ hands in the first stage, after which they will renege on the pledges and commitments regarding the subsequent stages.
“Netanyahu’s recent statements on the invasion of Rafah and continuing the war express Israel’s real attitude to the negotiating process. They reject a comprehensive and durable ceasefire, the withdrawal of IOF forces to the border and the return of the Palestinian civilians in Gaza to their homes in the north.
Clearly, they are just playing for time until the US completes the construction of the pier and preparations for the invasion of Rafah are in place. Netanyahu does not want to end the war. He wants to score points to counter his hardline ministers who keep threatening to resign if he agrees to a prisoner swap and an end to the war.”
The negotiations, hostilities, and political manoeuvring are revolving around an unprecedented geopolitical landscape. “The structural and topographical changes to the geopolitical environment are one of the most dangerous repercussions of the war against Gaza,” warned Tamara Haddad, an academic and political researcher specialising in Palestinian affairs.
“The situation, especially in the northern areas of the central governorate, specifically north of the Nuseirat, Mughraqa and Al-Zaytoun neighbourhoods, is no less dangerous than the aerial bombardment that has killed more than 34,000 civilians and wounded more than 77,000 while at least 10,000 people remain buried under the rubble.”
The new landscape, she said, is shaped by the destruction of nearly a quarter of a million buildings, the decimation of agricultural land and the spread of famine. It is the product of a scorched earth policy, as other sources have put it, that has left Gaza looking like it was struck by a magnitude 10 earthquake.
The resultant moonscape created by levelling apartment blocks, mosques, hospitals, schools, and other features of human life, is a measure of the vengeful hatred towards the people of Gaza. Unleashing that venom on a scale unprecedented in Israel’s previous aggressions against the Strip seemed even a greater Israeli priority than implanting the designs to redraw Gaza according to the IOF’s military and security needs.
Another defining feature of the new geopolitical landscape, according to Haddad, is the Netzarim corridor which cuts through Gaza to separate the north from the south. “The purpose is to restructure the northern sector, dividing it into agricultural, industrial, and tourist sectors, with a road for the IOF infantry along the coast.
A big chunk will be cut off for use by the occupation on the pretext of creating a buffer zone. That portion will serve as a staging point to facilitate incursions into the Strip whenever they want and for intelligence gathering operations, like in the West Bank.”
Meanwhile, a US Navy vessel is anchored offshore Gaza, working on another salient change to the Gazan topography. The floating pier, which is due to be completed in another month, is being constructed with the stated purpose of delivering humanitarian relief. But many believe that its real purpose is military and strategic, rather than humanitarian. Some suggest that the purpose is to pave the way for the construction of a joint US-Israeli naval base on a portion of Gazan territory, enabling the re-stationing of US-backed Israeli forces in northern Gaza.
Haddad, citing Palestinian sources, told the Weekly: “The wharf is being built out of the rubble of destroyed Palestinian homes while the IOF bombs the areas around the Netzarim corridor to keep Palestinians away from it. So here too we see a redrawing of Gaza.”
On top of the new offshore naval base, which will serve to transfer weapons, munitions, and logistics equipment to the occupation forces, the US is building a huge military base in the Negev near the Hatzerim Air Base. It will have the capacity to house 23,000 troops and US fighter jets, which will be drawn from US bases in the Gulf.
As Haddad explained, the port is being designed to enable the occupation to impose a form of permanent and sustainable military control over Gaza by establishing a permanent military feature on the ground on the Gaza shore opposite the central sector through which passes the road connecting the Rashid coastal road and the eastern Salaheddin road. This is known as the Netzarim area, named after the Israel settlement that was once there. The Occupation plans to widen that road and the area around it to 60 metres. Work is already in progress on the concrete foundations for two barrier walls on either side of the road so as to close off gaps people can use to evade checkpoints. These and the walls will be heavily equipped with a full gamut of security and surveillance devices.
“The IOF is continuing to bulldoze the bombed-out areas in the north,” Haddad continued. “So, it is hard to imagine the OIF withdrawing and letting the Palestinians return to their homes in the north after all these structural changes in the area.”
In Haddad’s view, which is quite pessimistic, Israeli-US strategic and military repositioning in the Negev and Gaza will ensure that Gaza and its people will not return to their pre-war lives.
The aim of Israeli-US plans “is to impose complete control over Gaza’s natural gas, to build industrial projects, and to implement the Ben Gurion canal projecting linking the Gulf of Aqaba and the Mediterranean. The Israeli security doctrine has not changed a bit. They are still bent on carrying out projects designed decades ago.”
* A version of this article appears in print in the 9 May, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: