The Biden administration wants Israel to agree to multiple weeks of ceasefire with Hamas. It hopes that this will buy time to build political pressure on Israel to bring to an end its offensive against the terrorist group.
Biden wants the war done because of three factors: Palestinian civilian casualties, associated diplomatic pressure on the United States from its allies, and, most of all, Biden’s fear that the war’s continuation will lose him votes in the key 2024 swing state of Michigan.
Israel appears open to a multiweek ceasefire that would see its remaining hostages released in exchange for thousands of Palestinian prisoners. But Hamas’ demand for a permanent ceasefire is an impossible one for both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his likely successor, opposition leader Benny Gantz.
The basic point is that Hamas’s military potential cannot be significantly degraded until the entirety of Gaza has been secured by the Israel Defense Forces. That outcome is a critical Israeli moral and security concern. To allow Hamas’s retention of its Rafah stronghold would invite the group’s military reconstitution, inspired sense of ordained survival, and inducement to future attacks. It would also diminish the already frayed credibility — stemming from the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks — of Israel’s deterrence posture against Iran. Israel cannot accept such a reality and thus must secure Rafah.
The question is, how to do so?
It’s an important question. Palestinian civilian casualties and suffering stemming from earlier IDF operations in northern and central Gaza have been significant. Israeli aid access to Gaza was inadequate until recently. As an extension, Israel’s standing with its allies has suffered, and support for Hamas, morally foul as such support is, has grown. These casualties have also led to diplomatic challenges for the U.S., as Israel’s closest ally, with key U.S. allies such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
At the same time, however, the Biden administration’s suggestion that Israel launch a counterterrorism raid/assassination-focused operation in Rafah is unserious. Too many Hamas operatives remain at large in Gaza to enable effective targeting of them over a reasonable period of time. And Israeli intelligence is insufficiently exquisite to identify key Hamas operatives who regularly relocate. A counterterrorism raid/assassination strategy could not defeat Hamas and would prolong the conflict and the suffering therein.
Instead, decisive action is required both for military and political reasons.
Sadly, it is inevitable that some civilians will die when the IDF goes into Rafah. The remaining Hamas fighters in Rafah (Israel says there are four brigade-size units totaling approximately 5,000-8,000 fighters) will offer heavy resistance because they have nowhere else to go. They will use civilians as shields, hoping for more casualties and greater international pressure on Israel. They will also kill their remaining Israeli hostages when and where Israeli forces get too close. Israel knows this. But Israel also knows that it can greatly degrade Hamas forces and kill Hamas’ Gaza chief, Yahya Sinwar.
As I see it, the best IDF option is a ground force centric operation in Rafah. First, Israel must endeavor to evacuate women and children from the town. Fighting-aged males can be at least temporarily detained to identify whether they are Hamas members. Combat operations can then follow.
Namely, an operation with armored forces at its spearhead and support from mechanized infantry units, saturating airborne drone surveillance and targeting, and compression of the Egypt-Rafah border. But a northern Gaza-style IDF reliance on heavy air power is impractical because of civilian casualty concerns. This may mean the IDF taking higher casualties than in northern Gaza as its forces move through Rafah’s dense neighborhoods and abundant Hamas ambush positions.
Still, Rafah’s grid/block system of roads and arterial junctions offers the IDF means of cordoning off the town’s various neighborhoods. Any military analyst will be able to look at a map of Rafah and identify certain key locations that the IDF will almost certainly seek to dominate in quick fashion. This territorial domination will then allow for the positioning of forward intelligence and command units.
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Of critical note, also, the IDF’s Merkava tanks and Trophy anti-missile protection systems have excelled thus far in Gaza. They can spearhead offensive operations to create new cordon zones and target Hamas building strongholds that are too well-protected for raids. Tank shells are highly accurate and destructive against buildings but far less so than 2,000-pound bombs. Within the expanding cordons, Israeli ground forces will be able to conduct methodical sweeps to detain or kill Hamas fighters. Receiving new intelligence, Israeli special forces will also be able to launch rapid hostage rescue operations and capture-kill raids against Hamas leaders.
The key, then, is armor before air power. But Israel has no choice but to go into Rafah.