The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declared victory on Thursday after wiping out four Hamas battalions in the Battle of Rafah after four months of fighting.
This was a battle that saw US Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris tell Israel not to fight, warning of the impact on civilians there and even threatening to withhold US arms supplies.
“I've studied the maps,” Harris said, asserting that it is impossible to attack Rafah without harming civilians.
Israel believed it would lose the war if it did not capture Rafah, so it went into the war anyway.
At the time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed the importance of destroying the remaining Hamas battalions. As of May 2024, Israel had destroyed 18 battalions, four in Rafah and two remaining in central Gaza. Netanyahu argued that it would be impossible to win the war without destroying the remaining six battalions.
After being postponed from February to May due to objections from Harris and President Joe Biden, Netanyahu went ahead with a battle plan that would see the IDF seize the Philadelphia Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border before moving into the rest of Rafah, fighting neighborhood by neighborhood, street by street, house by house.
The prime minister's office announced on Thursday that all of Hamas' battalions had been destroyed, and that Hamas had retreated into guerilla warfare and no longer functioned as a cohesive military force, Breitbart News reported.
Jewish News Syndicate Added The IDF formally declared victory over the four battalions in Rafah.
The Israel Defense Forces have defeated Hamas' Rafah Brigades after four months of raids targeting areas of the Gaza Strip's southernmost city near the border with Egypt, the army said on Thursday.
The Israeli military said Thursday evening that since Operation Rafah began on May 6, troops have killed more than 2,000 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists and destroyed about eight miles of underground smuggling and attack routes.
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According to previous Israeli military assessments, the Rafah Brigade and its four battalions (Yavna (south), East Rafah, Tel al-Sultan (west) and Shaboura (north)) were the terror group's last active brigade.
Caroline Glick attentionUS Ambassador Jack Lew has tried to claim that Israel has improved its military plans for Rafah by addressing US objections, and has credited the Biden-Harris administration for Israel's military success.
The Biden administration has asserted it is concerned about the fate of one million civilians who fled northern Gaza to Rafah, where Israel safely evacuated them before the attack.
Joel B. Pollack is executive editor of Breitbart News. Breitbart News Sunday It airs Sundays from 7:00pm-10:00pm ET (4:00pm-7:00pm PT) on SiriusXM Patriot. He is the author of the following books: Agenda: What President Trump Should Do in His First 100 Daysavailable for pre-order on Amazon. He also Trumpian virtue: The lessons and legacy of Donald Trump's presidencyavailable now on Audible. He is the recipient of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter. Joel Pollack.
