Hamas has set a trap in Rafah for the IDF.
Despite reports that the IDF has an updated operational plan for entering Rafah, or for at least securing the Egypt/Gaza border known as the Philadelphi Corridor, the Jerusalem Post understands that there is not yet an immediate decision to move forward.
Both the Hamas trap and the factors that have held back the IDF from entering Rafah with ground troops even past the 100-day mark of the war relate to a series of highly complex factors that could be decisive in shaping the outcome of the war and the post-war era.
Why hasn’t the IDF gone into Rafah to date?
The reasons have evolved, but paradoxically there are even more problems today with going in at the same time that going in has become more critical than ever.
Initially, the IDF decided to mostly focus its late October invasion in northern Gaza, leaving not only Rafah, but also most of Khan Yunis and the rest of southern Gaza untouched.
The Post understands that the hope or gamble was that Hamas’s leadership would see the dominance, power, and destruction in northern Gaza and decide to cut a deal favorable to Israel to avoid the same occurring in Khan Yunis.
In addition, the IDF wanted to give as wide an area as possible for northern Gaza’s 1.4 million Palestinian civilians to evacuate to: all of southern Gaza.
When Hamas broke the hostage deal in early December, the IDF decided to go after Khan Yunis, moving most of the Palestinian civilians in Khan Yunis even further south to Rafah.
Once again, the civilians needed somewhere to go.
But an additional reason that the IDF did not want to attack Rafah was the border with Egypt.
Publicly, Egypt has been highly critical of Israel’s war in Gaza.
At the same time, Cairo is a crucial part of negotiations for the Israeli hostages Hamas is holding, and will be an essential part of “The Day After” – some hybrid of countries who will receive the mandate to run aspects of Gaza from Israel once it pulls back its troops.
This means that Jerusalem cannot afford to alienate Egypt over tensions regarding its actions in Rafah and at the Philadelphi Corridor.
Without Egyptian support, the likelihood of a hostage deal drops dramatically and the likelihood that the Jewish state gets stuck owning and running Gaza against its will rises dramatically.
Egypt not only wants to avoid fighting accidentally harming its soldiers on the border, but it also wants to prevent even the possibility of a sudden spontaneous rush of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza side of Rafah into Egyptian territory to avoid fighting erupting around them.
Further, Cairo does not want to be accused of facilitating or endorsing Israeli control of the Gaza side of the border, which could lead to accusations of being a traitor to the Palestinians.
The Post understands that all of this means that the IDF cannot really act in Rafah or take control of the Philadelphi Corridor without very careful negotiations with Egypt which meticulously address its concerns as best as possible.
This was always a problem as it meant that Rafah could serve as a sanctuary for firing rockets on Israel even as the IDF started to stop or at least substantially reduce Hamas from being able to fire rockets from northern Gaza, central Gaza, and Khan Yunis.
But as long as Israel was more confident that Hamas’s leaders and Israeli hostages were in Khan Yunis, there were months of time to play with in December and January, to try to end the war by surrounding the Hamas leadership in its southern capital.
As time has dragged on, and there is no sign of catching Hamas’s leadership in Khan Yunis after seven weeks of trying, there are greater suspicions that aspects of Hamas’s leadership could be in Rafah, something which was always a concern.
If this is true, then Israel may not even have really started putting the immediate close-up pressure on Hamas’s leadership which could be necessary to topple it and get a favorable deal for the hostages.
In other words, if Hamas’s leadership is not considering a deal until the IDF is close enough to “knock on its door” – and if some of them are in Rafah which has gone mostly untouched – then all of the power and pressure throw at Khan Yunis will not achieve a decisive turning point anymore than taking control of northern Gaza did.
There are top defense officials who believe that now that Rafah’s population has shot up from around 200,000 to far more than one million that the suffering and poverty of the population will pressure Hamas into folding.
But why would the religiously fanatical Hamas leadership care more about “mere” starvation and poverty for its population, when it has not blinked from around 24,000 of its people being killed, including at least 9,000 of its fighters.
In fact, many observers believe the opposite is true: that Hamas is cynically thrilled when its population is in desperate straits, because this wins more global sympathy and brings more pressure down on Israel to end the war.
So let’s say Israel finally realizes it needs to act in Rafah or at least secure the Philadelphi Corridor to prevent Hamas from escaping and a smuggling rearming process.
In order to do that, the government will need to: 1) End its delay and decide what its policy will be for the “Day After” since Egypt will not cooperate without a satisfactory long-term vision; 2) Figure out how to act without killing Palestinian civilians within the most crowded Gaza situation it has yet confronted by many orders of magnitude, and with little additional areas to evacuate them to; and 3) Decide what it will do if and when it finds any of Hamas’s leadership surrounded by hostages it can kill at a moment’s notice.
This is the trap that Hamas has set for the IDF.
The IDF did show a stunning ability to walk a tightrope and escape another trap when it took control over Hamas’s Shifa Hospital command center without firing a shot indoors.
In order to achieve any of its stated goals, the IDF and Israel will likely need to spring this trap as well and navigate a way through.
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