An Israeli victory in Gaza is contingent on a military operation in Rafah to destroy Hamas operations there, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ABC as he pushed back against international pressure to refrain from such a step.
“Those who say that under no circumstances should we enter Rafah are basically saying lose the war, keep Hamas there,” Netanyahu told the US network, in an excerpt of an interview to be published on its Sunday program This Week.
”We’re going to get the remaining Hamas terrorist battalions in Rafah, which is the last bastion, but we’re going to do it, and in this, I agree with the Americans, while providing safe passage for the civilian population so they can leave,” Netanyahu stated.
Israel, he said, is “working out a detailed plan to do so.”
“This is part of our war effort to get civilians out of harm’s way; it’s part of Hamas’s effort to keep them in harm’s way,” he noted.
“Victory is within reach,” Netanyahu stressed.
Israel’s allies have called on Israel not to go into Rafah, citing humanitarian concerns
Israel’s allies have called on Netanyahu not to move forward with the operation, given that over 1.3 million Palestinians are in Rafah. Many of them fled to the southern city, which borders Egypt, to escape Israeli bombing in the north.
The UN, the EU, the United Kingdom, Germany Ireland, the US, and Jordan have all spoken out against such an operation.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron posted on X that he was “Deeply concerned about the prospect of a military offensive in Rafah – over half of Gaza’s population are sheltering in the area.
“The priority must be an immediate pause in the fighting to get aid in and hostages out, then progress towards a sustainable, permanent ceasefire,” he added.
United States Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told National Public Radio on Saturday night that, “we have been absolutely clear that under the current circumstances in Rafah, a military operation now in that area cannot proceed.
“It would dramatically exacerbate the humanitarian emergency that we’re all seeking to alleviate right now. Israel has an obligation to ensure that civilians, that [Gaza’s] civilian population is safe and that they’re secure and that they have access to humanitarian aid and to basic services.
“And I think you heard the secretary, [Antony Blinken,] make those statements clearly during his meetings and in his engagements with the press when he was there,” she said.
Egypt, according to the Wall Street Journal, has warned Israel that military action in Rafah could jeopardize the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries.
In an interview with Israel Radio, Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter (Likud) said that Cairo had no say in what happened in Rafah, which was located near Egypt’s border with Gaza.
“Egypt has a lot to say until the Philadelphi Corridor,” Dicter said, as he explained that its treaty with Israel does give it input over actions that occur between its border and that buffer zone, but not in Rafah, which is in Gaza.
“Egypt has no say about what happens Rafah,” Dicter said.
More to the point, he said, Israel had wanted to place Gaza, certainly Rafah, within Egypt’s borders, when it negotiated that treaty, but “Egypt did not agree to accept the Gaza Strip or part of it.”
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