The first raids on Rafah resulted in the death of one hundred citizens (French)
At dawn on Monday, February 12, the city of Rafah (south of the Gaza Strip) witnessed a series of violent raids that left more than a hundred martyrs and dozens wounded, in an operation called the “Golden Hand” by the Israeli army, during which it claimed it was able to free two of its captives in Gaza strip.
Despite the many question marks surrounding the details and circumstances of this operation, it constituted an incentive for the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to support his intentions to deepen the military operation towards this city crowded with displaced persons in the south of the Gaza Strip, despite all international warnings of a postponed massacre in Rafah.
What is happening in Rafah?
Rafah is located in the south of the Gaza Strip, and together with its camps it constitutes the fifth governorate according to the administrative division of the Gaza Strip. The city’s area extends over 55 square kilometers, out of 151 square kilometers which is the entire area of the governorate.
It is located in the south of the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt, and its population is 296,661 people according to 2022 statistics. It constitutes the Strip’s gateway to the outside world, and the Rafah crossing designated for citizens’ travel through Egypt is located there, and the Kerem Shalom crossing designated for bringing goods through “Israel” to The Strip, and the remains of Gaza International Airport, which was destroyed by the occupation at the beginning of the intifada.
After 130 days of aggression, Rafah turned into a reservoir for displaced people from all areas of the Strip, as the United Nations estimated the number of refugees to the city at 1.4 million out of 2.3 million total population of the besieged Strip.
With the siege imposed on it from all four sides, Rafah has today turned into a large refugee camp, as the number of residents there is now more than 6 times the number of its original population before the start of the aggression.
Tens of thousands of nylon and cloth tents are spread throughout the streets of the city, and even the border wall with Egypt, after the city was completely overcrowded and it was impossible to find any shelter inside it, as the first waves of displaced people resorted to renting any place to stay, whether it was sheds or houses under construction.
Dunes of confrontation and clashes
Trying to deconstruct the meaning of the start of the attack on Rafah requires analyzing the scene of the military effort and its reality in the governorate, in order to reach an understanding of what the Israeli army and its government are looking for in the last area that has not been subjected to a large ground operation on the ground so far.
Rafah includes a military presence of various Palestinian resistance factions, and the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas, form its backbone.
The Rafah Brigade is considered one of the five brigades that constitute the strength of the Al-Qassam military effort in the Gaza Strip. It includes 4 military battalions: “Yabna, Al-Sharqiya, Al-Shaboura, and Al-Gharbiyah,” which cover the neighborhoods and areas of Rafah Governorate, and the number of its fighters is estimated at approximately 10,000 fighters.
Rafah formed an advanced confrontation point with the occupation army in the Gaza Strip, and dozens of specific operations were launched from it during the years of the occupation and then the Al-Aqsa Intifada, including the bombing of a Merkava tank in 2004, claimed by the Al-Quds Brigades, which at the time killed 6 occupation soldiers.
Following the occupation’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Operation “Shattered Illusion” was launched from Rafah, which resulted in the capture of soldier Gilad Shalit from inside the Kerem Shalom military site. The year 2014 also witnessed the capture of officer Hadar Goldin.
Rafah contributed to supporting the Palestinian resistance with a number of its most prominent military leaders, including Raed Al-Attar, commander of the Rafah Brigade in the Al-Qassam Brigades, and Muhammad Abu Shamala, head of the Brigades’ Supply and Equipment Department. Likewise, Jamal Abu Samhadana, leader and founder of the Al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, Khaled Mansour and Muhammad Sheikh Khalil, leaders of the Al-Quds Brigades, and Majdi Al-Khatib, one of the leaders of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
Tunnel feature
The region gained an additional advantage by being the main supply point for the resistance factions with equipment and weapons, through border tunnels, which date back to the 1980s.
The process of building tunnels developed over the years to form the main weapon artery of the resistance until 2014, which witnessed the Egyptian army launching a campaign against the border tunnels and forming a buffer zone in Sinai.
The tunnels were - and still are - the password and title of the confrontation in Rafah, which placed it at the top of the list of Israeli military targets since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, as it was subjected to dozens of invasions and military operations before the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and later in the 2008 aggression.
The Philadelphia "Salah al-Din" axis remained the subject of Israeli accusations of being the military supply artery to the Gaza Strip.
What does Israel want from Rafah?
Since the beginning of this February, the pace of statements made by the Israeli Prime Minister about his intention to deepen the aggression against Gaza towards the city of Rafah has accelerated, as he confirmed that he had instructed the army to prepare the necessary military plans to expand the attack against Rafah and to prepare field plans to transport hundreds of thousands of displaced people from Rafah.
Despite the official political statements that successively warned of the development of aggression against Rafah, whether by Arab or European countries, and the reserved Egyptian position, Netanyahu does not seem to care about the extent of international condemnations. He is moving forward with promoting the expected attack on Rafah, armed with the American position that does not oppose the operation, but It requires the “safety of civilians,” according to President Joe Biden’s statements.
Anyone who follows the official Israeli statements notices that they are based on three main facts to justify the expected attack on Rafah, which are:
Completing the mission "Eliminate the military force of Hamas"
The Rafah Brigade constitutes one-fifth of the fighting force of the Hamas movement, and after 130 days of aggression, it still maintains a large part of its human and material military capabilities.
The brigade, with its four battalions, did not enter into any direct confrontations with the occupation army on the ground after the “Al-Aqsa Flood” on October 7, 2023.
Controlling the Salah al-Din axis
Although no evidence has been documented of the existence of tunnels for smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip in Rafah, Egyptian military operations targeted the border area to destroy the tunnels and impose a buffer zone on the border with Gaza, in which Hamas participated at some stages under the title of “controlling the borders.”
Israel believes with certainty that there are weapons smuggling tunnels, despite its failure to estimate the size and quality of the tunnel networks in Gaza, and the clear gap in information and facts on the ground revealed by the ground incursion into Gaza.
The political level, through Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, accused Egypt of involvement in the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, and said at a meeting of his party’s parliamentary bloc, “The Egyptians bear great responsibility for what happened on October 7. Hamas’ arming passed largely through Egypt.”
Imposing control and siege on the Gaza Strip
The occupation army has fiery control over the northern Gaza Strip, separating the north from the central region and the south by stationing itself in the south of the Gaza Governorate. It has taken its southern neighborhoods and the site of the former “Netzarim” settlement as points of concentration for its forces, which from time to time launch ground incursions deep into the western neighborhoods of Gaza City. In addition to its presence in the northeast and west of the sector.
With the start of the ground invasion towards the city of Khan Yunis, the occupation partially cut off the road connecting the Central Governorate to Khan Yunis Governorate, which penetrated into the eastern, southern, northern and western parts of it, and cut off with fire the road connecting to the city of Rafah via Salah al-Din Street, east of the governorate.
By controlling the Philadelphia axis, the Israeli army has divided the Gaza Strip into 4 separate parts, completely besieging it from its four sides, and thus becoming directly in control of the movement of individuals and humanitarian aid to and from the Gaza Strip, and within the Strip’s governorates in the north, south, and center.
Field pressure to impose conditions in the truce talks
The idea of the occupation developing its attack on the Gaza Strip towards the city of Rafah, after more than 130 days of aggression, may be viewed as primarily a political tactical step, seeking to impose a state of direct pressure on the Palestinian resistance, and drag it into the category of giving up its demands that it had previously presented during rounds of discussions. The truce is taking place under Egyptian and Qatari sponsorship and American knowledge in Cairo.
Attack on Rafah
Recalling the number of surprises presented by the “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle since its beginning, the option of invading the city of Rafah does not seem far-fetched, despite its high political and military cost to the occupation before the world.
This comes in light of the clear consensus on the threat that this attack poses to the lives of hundreds of thousands of displaced people, and in light of an Egyptian position that is officially wary of the idea of directing this human mass towards the border, or the idea of violating the Camp David Accords by launching a military operation in the area that the agreement stipulated was devoid of Weapon from both sides.
But the high ceiling reached by the occupation in its aggression, and the meagerness of any international reactions, only constitute an encouragement for it to continue its aggression.
Between the two sides of optimism and pessimism, the idea of the occupation launching a local operation in Rafah is likely, which may be by seeking to penetrate the city from its southeast and positioning itself on the ruins of Gaza International Airport, and starting from there to penetrate the separation border and seek to isolate the Gaza Strip from Egypt, or launching rapid local operations to strike what They are believed to be military targets for Hamas and the resistance factions.
Scenarios in the face of invasion
An Egyptian position on the Camp David Accords
With the Israeli threat of launching a military operation in Rafah, Egyptian officials repeatedly made statements threatening to suspend the peace treaty with “Israel,” according to what was reported by the Associated Press. These statements coincided with the Egyptian army moving 40 tanks and troop carriers towards North Sinai, and accelerating the operations of fortifying the border wall separating Gaza strip.
The Egyptian position and the scenario of canceling the Camp David Treaty may not seem like a serious option at the present time, especially if it is connected to a long history of Israeli violations of the treaty, but despite its consequences for Egypt as well by depriving it of the annual American aid imposed by the treaty, it constitutes a pressure card in terms of accelerating reaching a halt. Fire, or curtailing the planned military operation in Rafah.
Expanding the scope of the regional confrontation
The Rafah invasion operation, once launched, will constitute a military and humanitarian dilemma for the Gaza Strip, and will open the doors wide to scenarios of forced displacement and a new catastrophe for the residents of the Strip. This is what Hamas and its allies in the region are well aware of, and which may require them to escalate the level of confrontation with the occupation on the Lebanon and Yemen fronts to avoid the consequences. Disastrous attack.
Given the current data, and with our inability to predict the ceiling of communications and coordination between Hamas and the pillars of the “Axis of Resistance,” this scenario for expanding the scope of the confrontation seems possible and capable of shuffling the cards in the region, curbing Israel’s intentions to invade Rafah, and obliging its allies to intervene to prevent the region from being dragged into a wide-ranging regional war.
A reversal of the American position or an international movement
Despite American media statements and press reports about the Biden administration’s annoyance with the uncompromising Israeli position, Washington seems to be far from taking a different position towards the occupation, while the Arab and European position continues to issue official statements warning of the consequences of the attack on Rafah.
The escalation of demonstrations and popular events in countries around the world, and the political and legal consequences of the decision of the International Court of Justice, the most recent of which was the decision of a Dutch court to stop the export of F-35 aircraft parts to “Israel”, are cumulatively creating a state of pressure that may reach the point of no return, and cause... International resolutions against Israel force it to stop the aggression.
Source: Al Jazeera