According to the Israeli perception, Rafah appears to be the decisive battle, and the resistance on its part is aware of this matter and the dimensions of forced displacement that the occupier is planning (French)
The word "defeat" has been repeatedly used by Israeli officials in the past week, and Western officials have joined in this.
Their tongues are constantly talking about possible defeat at a time when the Israeli killing machine, with apparent Western assistance, continues to claim the lives of Palestinians, destroy their cities, towns and camps, and push most of them, under the power of starvation, thirst and lack of medicine and treatment, to the brink of forced displacement.
Heartbreaking conclusion
Yes, Israeli officials employ the “obsession with defeat”;
To frighten their people from this catastrophic outcome for their army, so the people have no choice but to remain silent about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s continuation of the war, but rather bless it, in order to ensure that he will not be punished if the guns fall silent, sometimes due to the loss of the war, and sometimes postponed by them due to his corruption and political disagreements. Interior floating on the surface.
But this does not hide the fact that there is a feeling among Israelis of actual defeat, with their army unable to achieve the goals so far.
Yes, this army destroyed Gaza, killing its people and wounding tens of thousands, but this does not mean victory in the eyes of Israelis who had previously seen their army destroy, kill and injure Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank together over the course of decades, without being satisfied.
Victory for the Israelis does not only mean achieving the direct goals of the war, the first of which is returning the prisoners without resorting to negotiation, eradicating Hamas or at least destroying its capabilities and forcing it to surrender, or arresting its senior leaders, but it extends further, which is for their army to return to doing what it says. It achieves the goals it sets, and the most important thing is that it remains capable of deterrence and intimidation, so it remains feared in the hearts of all the armies surrounding Israel, and all the resistance factions in Palestine, Lebanon, and elsewhere.
Moral losses
Netanyahu realizes this, but so far he seems unable to achieve such a “victory” that resides in the minds and imaginations of Israelis. However, he is unable to announce this inability, and therefore he has no choice but to mortgage everything with an attack he wants to launch on Rafah, claiming that it is The last stronghold of Hamas, or the place where resistance leaders are hiding.
He is marketing this perception all the time at the local, regional and international levels.
Rafah, according to this Israeli perception, appears to be the hinge or the decisive battle, and the resistance on its part is aware of this matter, and keeps in mind another issue, related to threats that do not stop forcing the Palestinians - who were crowded in Rafah and its environs, and even a stone's throw from the Egyptian border - to leave. Forced.
The resistance realizes that implementing this - God forbid - will satisfy the Israelis, and will make them turn a blind eye to their army’s other losses, and ignore, even psychologically, thinking about its inability to achieve the goals it set for the war from the beginning.
Israel's attempt to attack Rafah is not an easy task, as it faces several obstacles, the first of which is the presence of crowds of civilians in this narrow area, which means an increased possibility of excessive killing and injury. This is an issue that, if the Israeli army is not preoccupied with it for religious and military pretexts, then Israeli politicians are. Its opinion leaders know very well that such crimes will increase criticism raining down on Israel from all over the world, and over the course of the war, they have caused huge moral losses, most importantly a wound to the image that Tel Aviv has drawn for itself for decades.
Rejection and warning
At the same time, Israel's main ally in this war - the United States of America - believes that any military action that is not thought out or has a specific duration and course in Rafah would increase the cost that falls on the administration of the American President, in light of its awareness of the impact of support and support. What is open to Israel, in its war, is on the popularity of Joe Biden, who is facing difficult presidential elections after about nine months, an issue indicated by opinion polls, the positions of some pillars of the administration and the Democratic Party, and the position of political opponents from the Republican Party as well.
Yes, on the surface, Netanyahu seems not to care about anything other than his purely direct interest, but in depth, the weight of the American administration in the Israeli decision is great, and Tel Aviv cannot continue to ignore it until the end, and if it does not change or stop this decision, it will at least put restrictions on it sometimes.
The same applies, but to a lesser extent, to the position of Israel’s European allies, who are facing successive demonstrations in their countries rejecting the continuation of the war, clearly criticizing the killing and wounding of civilians in this horrific manner, and also objecting to the displacement of the population of the Gaza Strip, through killing, destruction of living conditions, starvation, thirst and deprivation. Of treatment.
There is another weight for the Arab countries, which refuse to displace the people of the Gaza Strip, and believe that the ground attack on Rafah may make displacement a reality.
This weight is not without consideration in light of Egypt's awareness that the invasion of Palestinian Rafah simply means Tel Aviv violating the peace treaty it concluded with Cairo in 1979.
Egyptian officials have expressed this position more than once through statements and interventions, in international discussions and meetings, or during the pleading that Egypt submitted before the International Court of Justice a few days ago, which carried a warning about the issue of displacement.
Military and political pressure
In the same context, Israel bears in mind the position of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that refuses to attack Rafah, and the resulting severe harm to the Palestinian people, whether through murder or forced displacement.
Before the start of the war, there was strong talk about the imminent normalization of relations between Riyadh and Tel Aviv. Although this path was halted with the outbreak of war, the hope of the Israelis and their successor, the American administration, to resume it has not ceased.
In addition to this, the invasion of Rafah may increase the pressure on Israel, militarily from the Lebanese and Yemeni fronts, or politically from Arab and Islamic countries, and others in Africa and Latin America, all of which reject the continuation of the aggression, and even more strongly reject the forcible removal of the Gazans from their land.
But these restrictions, despite their importance, may not constitute sufficient weight to tie the hand of Netanyahu, who seems ready to burn everything in order to remain Prime Minister of Israel, or postpone his punishment, especially since he has succeeded in convincing a large sector of Israelis that the Battle of Rafah is a turning point and not a decisive turning point. In the course of the war towards victory or defeat, but in the entire history of Israel, which sees itself waging a war of existence in Gaza.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.