Rafah crossing becomes flashpoint in Israel’s war on Hamas: 4 takeaways

Israel’s entry into Rafah and occupation of a key border crossing on Tuesday sparked international debate and condemnation as some 1.4 million civilians displaced in the southern Gaza city became targets of a potential invasion. caused.

Israel seized control of the Gaza side of the Rafah border, the only entry point between Gaza and Egypt and a key transit point for humanitarian aid, late Monday after launching “targeted attacks” in eastern Rafah.

This came just hours after it ordered the “immediate evacuation” of some 100,000 Palestinians east of Rafah, and soon Israeli bombs began raining down on residential areas.

U.S. allies said the cease-fire terms agreed to by Hamas on Monday were “far from meeting” their demands, vowing instead to “apply military pressure on Hamas” in Rafah and proceed with the offensive.

Biden administration officials claimed Tuesday that they believed Israeli assurances that the action was a limited operation aimed at cutting off Hamas’ ability to transport weapons across the border to Rafah.

But other international leaders, including the UN Secretary-General, said the attack on Rafah would be a humanitarian disaster and called on both sides to agree to an immediate ceasefire.

The key takeaways from this situation are:

Why Rafah is militarily important to Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has anointed an Israeli military operation in Rafah as a solution to both the return of the remaining hostages held in Gaza and the eventual annihilation of Hamas.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video on Tuesday that Israeli forces launched the operation overnight, saying: “Entry into Rafah serves two main war objectives: the return of the hostages and the annihilation of Hamas.”

He went on to say that “military pressure on Hamas is a necessary condition for the return of the hostages,” and that Hamas’s agreement to the ceasefire proposal “is intended to torpedo the entry of our forces into Rafah.” ” he criticized. That didn’t happen. ”

There are still an estimated 133 Israeli hostages in Gaza, but it is unclear how many are still alive or under Hamas control.

Israel has requested the evacuation of 40 of the most vulnerable hostages – children, women, the elderly and the injured – as part of the first phase of the cease-fire agreement. However, Hamas negotiators have indicated that there simply aren’t enough people in these categories to reach this figure.

Also standing in the way of an agreement is how long the ceasefire should last. Hamas wants such a pause to eventually end the war, but Israel is only interested in halting fighting long enough to secure hostages before removing Hamas from Gaza. There is.

Rafah is a key hub for the turmoil, and Israeli War Cabinet Secretary Benny Gantz said Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) operations in Rafah “will continue and expand as necessary.”

Meanwhile, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Tuesday that his country’s invasion of Gaza would continue until Hamas is destroyed in Rafah and throughout the territory, or until the last hostage is returned.

There is a danger of drawing Egypt into

Rafah’s invasion threatens to draw Egypt into hostilities, a situation that will further exacerbate tensions in an already volatile region.

Egypt, along with the United States and Qatar, has been working for weeks on a proposed ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that would secure the release of Israeli hostages.

The country has a unique stake in brokering such a deal because it shares a border with Gaza and wants to stem the flow of Palestinian refugees into the land.

But Egypt’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday condemned Israel’s closure of the Rafah border crossing, calling the move a “dangerous escalation.”

The ministry said the action threatened “the lives of more than 1 million Palestinians, who mainly rely on this crossing as a key lifeline in the Gaza Strip,” and urged Israel not to jeopardize the possibility of a ceasefire. warned.

Egypt had previously warned that Israel’s influx of Palestinian refugees could invalidate the decades-old Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty.

The agreement, signed in 1979, has served as an important source of stability in the Middle East.

A deepening humanitarian crisis

Ahead of a full-scale military invasion of Rafah, Israel ordered the immediate evacuation of some 100,000 civilians living in parts of eastern Rafah to the coastal town of Almawasi. But aid groups have warned that the area is not habitable, and the United Nations human rights chief has called the order “inhumane.”

“Gazans continue to be hit by bombs, disease and even starvation. And today, as Israel’s military operation into Rafah expands, they are told they will have to relocate again” Volker Türk The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement. “This is inhumane.”

His colleague, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, warned earlier on Monday that a ground invasion of Rafah was “unacceptable given its devastating humanitarian impact and destabilizing effects in the region.”

The United Nations and humanitarian groups in the Gaza Strip have warned that the Gaza Strip is on the verge of full-scale famine, as access to food and medicine is already in dire need.

On Tuesday, UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, warned that humanitarian relief operations in Gaza could be further exacerbated by disruptions caused by Israeli control of the Rafah border crossing.

UNRWA said on social platform

“If these supply routes are cut off, the devastating hunger faced by people, especially in northern Gaza, will be exacerbated,” the official added.

international pressure mount

World leaders immediately condemned Israel’s advance into Rafah and its refusal to rule out a full-scale invasion there.

Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, and several United Nations agencies condemned Israel’s apparent plan as a dangerous escalation.

Mr. Guterres urged Israel and Hamas to “show political courage and spare no effort to win an agreement now to stop the bloodshed, free the hostages, and help stabilize an area that is still at risk of explosion.” “No,” he asked.

“Things are going in the wrong direction,” he added.

In the West, the European Union’s top diplomat, Foreign Secretary Josep Borrell, worried that the Rafah invasion “will again cause many civilian casualties, no matter what they say.”

“There are 600,000 children in Gaza. They will be forced into so-called safe zones. [but] There is no safe zone in Gaza,” Borrell said Tuesday ahead of a meeting of the Cabinet for Development Cooperation.

World Health Organization regional director Hanan Balki warns on the X show that 1.5 million lives are “in immediate danger” from Israeli military operations and border crossings will be “urgently reopened” I asked.

And Amnesty International official Erika Guevara-Rosas said Operation Rafah was a “cruel and inhumane act, and has already shown the devastating impact such operations have on civilians.”

He called on all countries to put pressure on Israel to “immediately cease ground operations in Rafah and ensure free access to humanitarian assistance in line with its obligations to prevent genocide.”

Even the United States has grown frustrated with Israel’s stance in recent months, and last week warned it could reassess its support for the ally if the United States does not do more to protect civilians and aid workers in the Gaza Strip. It was suggested that there is a sex.

The threat appears to have been called as reports emerged on Tuesday that ammunition shipments to Israel were being delayed, making it the first time the United States has stepped up its lethal aid to the country since the war with Hamas began in October. It was the first time I had held back.