There have been plans for months for where to evacuate the 1.4 million Palestinian civilians from Rafah whenever the IDF would invade.
To insider followers of the Israeli defense establishment, this was why the fight between Israel and the US over the evacuation always seemed somewhat artificial and potentially connected more to other issues.
But it turns out there is a real sticking point: food, tents, and medical field hospitals.
Israel and the IDF had detailed plans for evacuating the civilians to Al-Mawasi on the coast, to designated parts of Khan Yunis, which have already been cleared of Hamas, and to parts of central Gaza, which have already been cleared of Hamas.
The plans include specific safe corridors, which have also been mapped out.
Additionally, the IDF moved most of the 1.2 million Palestinian civilians out of Gaza City mostly successfully, so it has managed a mass evacuation already, in addition to smaller but sizable mass evacuations from Khan Yunis and parts of central Gaza.
Also, Israel and the IDF were willing to stagger the invasion of Rafah into stages to make sure that most of the civilians left before major fighting took place.
The fighting in Rafah is also not a huge impediment for the IDF.
Hamas’s battalions in Rafah, whether they have 4,000 as previously said or 8,000 as Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer said this week, are viewed as much weaker than those of Gaza City and Khan Yunis, which the IDF has already thoroughly taken apart.
No matter how many boobytraps and tunnels Hamas has in Rafah, the IDF’s new fighting tactics, from fully integrated warfare with the air force, tanks, and artillery to more highly armored troop carriers that can withstand RPGs to a plethora of tactics for fighting within tunnels, have proven their effectiveness.
Providing necessary conditions for the evacuated Gazans will be more difficult than dealing with Hamas
But IDF sources have now admitted that they had not fully taken into account that moving civilians from Rafah is completely different from the other evacuations in terms of food, tents, and medical field hospitals.
To satisfy the US, it is not enough to move the civilians without them getting shot; they also need to have food, shelter, and access to medicine once they are moved.
Rafah has been set up for such emergencies in the past and is ready for such an emergency now.
A tent city, food, and medical care were all waiting to some degree and relatively set up for erecting and adding to the existing infrastructure and areas. The proximity to the border with Egypt, where much of the international aid is flown into, also helped.
The three areas that the IDF would evacuate civilians to from Rafah are not.
Al-Mawasi is not as set up for absorbing civilians in a way to keep them fed and healthy for an extended period, and battles between the IDF and Hamas have significantly destroyed the infrastructure in Khan Yunis and central Gaza.
IDF sources have admitted, based on this, that if evacuating 1.2 Palestinians from northern Gaza took one to two weeks, depending on how one measures things, evacuating civilians from Rafah to much less hospitable and set-up areas will take many, many weeks (translate: one to two months.)
It is not even clear whether Israel and the international aid groups can set up minimal sufficient shelter and supplies in that time, part of why the US is still pressing Israel for more targeted and limited strikes and invasions into select parts of Rafah which do not destroy as much of the infrastructure as what occurred in Gaza City and Khan Yunis, where whole neighborhoods simply no longer exist.
Israel’s problem with this is that Hamas would likely use any areas not being attacked to hide among the civilian population.
Also, Hamas can use the evacuation of 1.4 million civilians to sneak many of its fighters back to areas that were previously viewed as cleared, precisely as many fighters used the evacuation of northern Gaza to flee South.
Of course, there is also still operationally making sure Palestinians do not flee into Egypt – a red line for Cairo that could lead it to alter its relations with Jerusalem fundamentally.
There may be no perfect answers, and some benefits of spreading out the evacuation over a longer time may enable making more adjustments in real-time as problems develop.
One thing that is certain, however, is that as long as Hamas is not ready to cut another interim deal with Israel to release more hostages, there is no real option for Israel not to go into Rafah in some way. US resistance, as long as Jerusalem gets more serious about planning for the issues of food, tents, and medical care – is likely to recede.
Whether the US will continue to back Israel as any Rafah operation plays out will then depend on the results: do civilians make it out alive, and are they able to continue to stay alive once moved or not?
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