Two possible scenarios for Israel's withdrawal! Why must it attack Rafah?
2024-08-07
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After half a year of fighting in Gaza, the Israeli army suddenly withdrew, leaving the international community with many questions: Why did they withdraw? How would they deploy in the future? And most importantly, would they continue to fight in Rafah?
According to outside analysis, there are two main possibilities for the Israeli army's withdrawal.
First, it is to deal with possible "attacks" from Iran. After the "embassy bombing", Iran vowed to retaliate, but has not yet done so, which has made the Israelis very nervous. It is said that 28 Israeli embassies and consulates are now temporarily closed, and the Israeli army is also on "high alert".
The second possibility is that Israel is preparing for the future battle of Rafah. According to previous news, Israel plans to start after the end of Ramadan. The Israeli army in southern Gaza has been fighting for more than four months and needs to rest and redeploy before fighting again.
The second possibility was confirmed by the Israeli side. On the 7th, the Israeli Defense Minister stated that the withdrawal was to "prepare for future missions", including the attack on Rafa.
On the 8th, Netanyahu once again emphasized that Rafah would definitely be attacked.
In other words, the withdrawal does not mean that Israel will not attack Rafah. On the contrary, as long as Israel's war goals do not change, the withdrawal is just a technical adjustment. Israel will definitely find opportunities to attack Rafah in the future, and even deploy more troops to return to southern Gaza.
What is Rafa? Why is it so important to fight? Let's talk about it today.
Rafah is a small town in southern Gaza, bordering Egypt and an important gateway for Palestinians to receive international aid.
Rafah is not big, about 60 square kilometers, and originally had only 280,000 people. But with the Israeli army's offensive from north to south, the population here rapidly expanded to 1.5 million, becoming the last refuge for Gazans.
The disastrous humanitarian situation has made Rafah's name appear frequently in the newspapers recently. People either squeeze into dirty and crowded shelters or set up camp on the streets and open spaces. A 20-square-meter tent can squeeze into one or two families. The huge tent camps are spread all over the city, so many foreign media also call Rafah a "tent city."
This is an aerial view taken in October last year, and this is an aerial view taken three months after the conflict. I believe you can all see the difference.
Therefore, some foreign media believe that Israel’s withdrawal is also to allow some civilians in Rafah to return to other areas in southern Gaza, so that when Israel attacks, it can reduce humanitarian pressure and make it easier to target.
Netanyahu said that nothing can stop Israel from attacking Rafah. He even equated the victory or failure of the conflict with whether or not Rafah can be captured!
Why? There are three main reasons.
First, it is to eradicate Hamas.
According to the Israeli side, before the conflict, Hamas had about 24 battalions, but 20 of them have now been "destroyed" and are no longer an organized fighting force. About half of its 40,000 combatants have been killed or injured. Hamas only has four battalions left that can "fully fight", in Rafah. And everyone knows that the remnants of some other battalions must have also withdrawn to Rafah, and the number is not small.
Therefore, in Israel's view, Rafah is Hamas' last hiding place. If these militants are not cleared out, Hamas may regroup and make a comeback.
Secondly, it was to round up the leadership of Hamas. According to the Israeli side, they killed 24 battalion commanders and 89 company commanders of Hamas. At the end of March, Issa, the "number three figure" of Hamas and the deputy commander of the Qassam Brigades, was also killed in the airstrike.
But the Israeli army has two other important targets. One is Sinwar, the leader of the Hamas in the Gaza Strip, who is also the mastermind of the attack on October 7. The other is Deif, the commander of the Qassam Brigades. In addition to Haniyeh, the leader of the Hamas Political Bureau, Sinwar and Deif should be the "number one" and "number two" figures identified by Israel.
In February, the Israeli army also released surveillance video of Sinwar and his family fleeing in a Gaza tunnel. Israel believes that Sinwar did not flee to Egypt, but remained in Rafah. From Israel's perspective, whether he was killed or captured, it would be a major victory.
Once again, Israel hopes to retake the "Philadelphia Corridor."
The Philadelphia Corridor is a 14-kilometer-long narrow strip of land between Gaza and Egypt, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Kelem Shalom crossing in the south, with the Rafah crossing in the middle that we often hear about in the news.
After Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979, the Philadelphia Corridor was set up as a buffer zone to prevent weapons and supplies from entering Gaza, and the area was controlled and patrolled by Israel. But after 2007, the Philadelphia Corridor was taken over by Hamas.
I said in my previous video that the side of the border between Gaza and Israel is more difficult to "break through". There is a "smart fence" that Israel has spent a lot of effort to build, with barriers both above and below the ground.
The Rafah crossing is the only border crossing that is not controlled by Israel. Hamas also smuggles weapons, ammunition and other items through the tunnels here. Therefore, Netanyahu has repeatedly emphasized the need to take over the Philadelphia Corridor in order to control the flow of people and goods in Gaza and ensure the demilitarization of Gaza after the war.
Almost all countries are calling on Israel to stop and take action, because a forceful attack on Rafah will inevitably result in a large number of civilian casualties!
But the "pressure" from the outside world is not enough to deter Israel. When has Israel ever worried about humanitarianism? When has Israel ever been afraid of outside public opinion? The international community has repeatedly called for a ceasefire, but Israel has always rejected it outright.
I am very pessimistic about the future of Palestine. Since October 7, we have witnessed a continuing catastrophic humanitarian crisis, with 33,000 lives lost in Gaza. However, the international community has not been able to come up with a substantive solution, and ceasefire agreements have been rejected time and again. Some major powers have even airdropped supplies and transported ammunition.
Although Israel has temporarily withdrawn its troops for various reasons, once the threat of an Iranian attack is lifted and the pressure from the international community is relaxed, I am afraid that Israel will attack Rafah and the war will reignite. By then, more women and children will die in a pool of blood.
Of course, I sincerely hope that my pessimism is wrong, and I also hope that the withdrawal can become an important opportunity for the entire international community to put pressure on Israel.
Kankan News Reporter: Zhang Yiye
Editor: Chen Weiqin
Art Editor: Jin Liwei
Editor: Zhang Yiye
