Israel intensifies campaign against Rafah following discussions with Jake Sullivan

Israel is “strengthening our effort against Rafah” following a new round of consultations with U.S. officials intended to bridge a rift over the military operation that opened in recent months.

“This operation will go on and increase, more forces on the ground, more forces from the air, and we will reach our goals: to deal a very hard blow to Hamas, to deprive it of its military capabilities, [and] to create the conditions to return the hostages to their homes,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to attack Hamas in Rafah developed in recent months into a bone of contention within Israeli society and between his government and President Joe Biden’s administration. Netanyahu has rebuffed pressure to accept Hamas’s demand for a permanent ceasefire as part of a deal to release Israeli hostages, while Biden has threatened to withhold at least some military assistance from Israel if the IDF proceeds with a plan the U.S. deems irresponsible — a dispute that prompted Biden’s top foreign policy aide to travel to Jerusalem in recent days.

“I was briefed by Israeli officials and by Israeli professionals on refinements that Israel has made to its plans to achieve its military objectives while taking account of civilian harm,” Sullivan told reporters Wednesday. “We now have to see what unfolds from here. We will watch that, we will consider that, and we will see whether what Israel has briefed us and what they have laid out continues or something else happens.”

If Netanyahu feels any relief from the American side, the respite might be offset by intensifying internal pressures related to the fallout from the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack. A group of advocates for the Israeli hostages held by Hamas released footage of five teenage women who were kidnapped while serving in the Israel Defense Forces as field observers — unarmed monitors of the border region whose base was breached by Hamas.

“I know that the video raises tough and sharp questions, including how did something like this happen,” IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters Thursday. “We in the IDF have the responsibility to provide in-depth answers to these questions first to the families and then to the public. … On Oct. 7, the IDF failed to defend. Now we have the responsibility to investigate in-depth and correct.”

The families of the girls released that footage to spur Netanyahu to authorize a continuation of indirect negotiations with Hamas. The Israeli war cabinet agreed Thursday “to continue negotiations for the return of the hostages,” but a senior Israeli national security council official resigned last week after objecting to the government’s strategy.

Dr. Yoram Hemo warned that the defeat of Hamas is “a long way from being completed with the current approach, and I doubt it will be at all,” according to Israeli media reports. He added that the attack would diminish Hamas’ incentive to release the hostages in exchange for a ceasefire, “turning the hostages into a yearslong issue, with everything this entails for national resilience, Israel’s freedom to act, and failing to reach the war’s goals.”

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The war cabinet is not optimistic about Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar’s willingness to bargain with Israel, according to other reports.

“The assessment, as of now, is that Sinwar is not at all interested in the deal and that any Israeli initiative is doomed in advance to failure,” an unnamed Israeli official told Haaretz.