10 May 2024
Earlier this week, Israel launched a limited campaign against Hamas in the southern-most Gazan city of Rafah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that taking out Hamas in Rafah is essential to defeating the terror group and preventing them from regrouping and threatening Israel again. According to Israeli defense officials, four of Hamas’s six remaining battalions are in the city, along with members of the terror group’s leadership and a significant number of the hostages it abducted from Israel during the October 7 onslaught. Hamas has publicly vowed many repeats of its murderous rampage of Oct. 7.
According to Yaakov Lappin at JNS, “the decision by Israel’s War Cabinet to order the Israel Defense Forces to seize Rafah Crossing is strategically significant, as it will negatively impact Hamas’s ability to smuggle weapons and people back and forth from neighboring Sinai. The crossing is part of the wider Philadelphi Corridor running along the Gaza-Egypt border, which has for years been a central supply line for Hamas smuggling.”
The campaign is limited. This seems to be in response to the pressure of the Biden Administration in recent weeks not to proceed into Rafah, fearing a humanitarian crisis, and to concede to Hamas demands.
Hamas has refused to concede to Israel’s demands for unconditional release of the remaining hostages. The US Administration has not supported those demands. Jonathan Tobin at JNS reports:
The terms of the proposed deals that Washington has backed are appalling. They call for the release of some hostages, but only a percentage of those Hamas is still holding under who knows what horrible conditions. And the pressure that Washington has exerted on Netanyahu to take a deal on virtually any terms and conditions—along with the way it has coordinated this with Hamas’s ally, Qatar—has given the terrorists all the leverage. That’s why Hamas continues to turn down even the most lopsided of agreements; its leaders are convinced that Biden will not let them be defeated. That means they think they can hold out for a deal that will end the war and return the situation to the pre-Oct. 7 status quo in Gaza and still not give up all the hostages, let alone be held accountable for mass murder.
Leading up to this week’s military campaign, Israel has taken extensive efforts to ensure humanitarian aid reaches the people of Rafah. The evacuation of some 100,000 civilians in eastern Rafah started on Monday ahead of an overnight targeted operation in which the IDF took control of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and the Salah ad-Din road. The IDF on Monday called on the residents of eastern Rafah to evacuate to newly established humanitarian zones. The IDF has marked out two evacuation zones,which include field hospitals, tents and increased amounts of food, water, medicine and other supplies. The Israeli military said that it was conveying the evacuation message via announcements, text messages, phone calls and media broadcasts in Arabic.
Leading military expert Col. Richard Kemp defends Israel’s right (and obligation) to use whatever force is necessary in Rafah in order to defeat Hamas. He has written: “It shouldn’t need saying that it is absolutely vital for Israel to eliminate Hamas’s capability to continue translating its twisted ideology into physical violence. That means their physical destruction in Rafah. Israel must push on with its plans and not buckle to international pressure, no matter how great. Failure to do so would amount to nothing less than strategic defeat.”
Let us pray for the people of Gaza, and for the Israeli leadership and soldiers. Pray that the IDF will be successful in their efforts to free the people of Gaza from the terror regime of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and others. Pray for the remaining hostages in Gaza, that they will be protected and freed as soon as possible.
The Editorial Team - Israel & Christians Today
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