Can Israeli PM Netanyahu achieve his stated war objectives with Rafah assault?

For the Netanyahu government, however, Rafah represents a last opportunity to declare the war won and, in the process, to ensure Netanyahu has a political future. (AFP). (AP)
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Updated 13 May 2024
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Can Israeli PM Netanyahu achieve his stated war objectives with Rafah assault?

  • Despite claim there are four brigades in Rafah, it is unclear how many operational fighters Hamas still has
  • Some Israeli analysts say Israel needs to make Hamas ideologically and politically irrelevant, not do the opposite

LONDON: This week, before-and-after imagery released by US commercial satellite company Planet Labs showed the extent of the damage inflicted in just one day by Israeli forces on the outskirts of Rafah, close to the Egyptian border.

This is not the city of Rafah itself — yet. Awaiting a resolution of the political standoff between their government and the US, which has threatened to stop supplying ammunition if Israel invades Rafah, the 98th Airborne and the 162nd Armored divisions are massing to the south of the city.

In the satellite imagery captured on Tuesday, groups of tanks can be seen in the vicinity of the Rafah crossing, which Israeli troops occupied and closed on Monday, and grouped in several other strategic locations.

While they are waiting, however, they have been laying waste to much of the surrounding infrastructure and indulging in some symbolic wanton vandalism: in a video released on Tuesday a tank rolls over a “I love Gaza” sign near the crossing.




Netanyahu has gambled his political future on two objectives tied to a continuation of the devastating and murderous assault on Gaza — the destruction of Hamas and the killing of its top commanders. (AFP)

The contrast between the satellite images taken on Monday and Tuesday is striking. In the course of one day, hundreds of homes, commercial buildings, agricultural plots and other structures on dozens of sites either side of the Salah Al-Din highway were destroyed.

“This,” said a spokesman for the Israeli government on Tuesday, “is the beginning of our mission to take out the last four Hamas brigades in Rafah.”

But although Netanyahu has gambled his political future on two objectives tied to a continuation of the devastating and murderous assault on Gaza — the destruction of Hamas and the killing of its top commanders — after seven months of all-out warfare those objectives seem increasingly unattainable.

Despite the Israeli claim that there are four brigades in Rafah, it is unclear exactly how many operational fighters Hamas still has, or exactly where they are. It is also not clear if they have chosen, as some commentators have suggested, to make a “last stand” in Rafah, or even, after seven months of war, if they have the weapons and ammunition necessary to do so.




Groups of tanks were seen in the vicinity of the Rafah crossing. (AFP)

Even less certain is the location of Hamas military leader Yahya Sinwar, from whom nothing has been heard since the invasion of Gaza began.

Sinwar, Israel’s public enemy number one, has become a ghost, so much so that on Thursday US National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby made a public plea for him to “come clean about what his intentions are.”

Writing in The Spectator this week, Middle East analyst Jonathan Spyer suggested that, “contrary to what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might wish, Sinwar, his brother Mohammed, and the Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif are almost certainly not currently besieged in a bunker in Rafah, surrounded and obliged to either agree to the Egyptian (ceasefire) proposal or be crushed beneath the treads of the 98th and the 162nd.”

In fact, added Spyer, director of research at the Middle East Forum, “it is not even certain if the Hamas leaders and their hostages are even still in the Rafah area, or ... in some other part of the strip.”

Gaza, although barely larger than the small Mediterranean island of Malta, has nevertheless proved to be a frustrating landscape for Israeli operations.




“The only way to defeat the Hamas ideology is with a better ideology, and that is to make the two-state solution real to Palestinians,” said Gershon Baskin. (AFP)

On Thursday it emerged that even before the Oct. 7 attack, Israel had tried, and failed, to assassinate both Sinwar and Al-Deif, the commander-in-chief of Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades.

In remarks made to a Jewish organization in the US and broadcast on Israeli television’s Channel 12, Israel’s former military chief of staff Aviv Kochavi said a perceived “change with Hamas” in 2021 had led to the decision to try to kill the two men.

“We tried, and it’s hard,” he was reported as having said.

“In a densely populated, heavily built-up area it is very hard. So, we had been working for months in order to procure the operation but we couldn’t.”

Kochavi also added his voice to the growing chorus in Israel critical of Netanyahu’s increasingly unpopular determination to continue military operations in Gaza.




Yahya Sinwar, Israel’s public enemy number one, has become a ghost. (AFP)

“I don’t think there is a way to bring back the hostages without halting for the time being the war,” he said. Furthermore, he added, “I don’t think we can achieve complete victory in months — forget it, it will take years.”

For the Netanyahu government, however, Rafah represents a stage for political theatre — a last opportunity to declare the war won and, in the process, to ensure Netanyahu has a political future.

INNUMBERS

• 120 People taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7 still unaccounted for.

• 252 Israelis and foreigners taken hostage in the attack, according to Israel.

• 80,000 People known to have fled Rafah since last Monday after Israeli warning.

“They're looking for a victory,” said Yossi Mekelberg, a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the Middle East and North Africa Program at London-based policy institute Chatham House.

“They are looking for a photo op: ‘Here is his head, we’ve cut off the head of Hamas, now it’s all over’.”

Although the message from Biden “is very clear — for the United States to even suggest imposing an arms ban on Israel is a huge thing,” Netanyahu is also facing a potential internal revolt by his right-wing cabinet members, such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Givr and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who oppose any ceasefire with Hamas.




Despite the Israeli claim that there are four brigades in Rafah, it is unclear exactly how many operational fighters Hamas still has. (AFP)

Ultra-religious, “they are on a different planet,” said Mekelberg. “It’s not between them and other human beings, it's between them and God. And they are telling Netanyahu if he compromises too much with Hamas they will leave the government, and that there is no point in them staying in government if we don't enter Rafah.”

Whether they would find Sinwar there is anybody’s guess, says Gershon Baskin, a former adviser to Israeli, Palestinian and international prime ministers on the Middle East peace process.

“I'm sure that he's not just sitting and waiting,” he said. “He has certainly booby-trapped tunnels and bunkers in the whole area between Rafah and Khan Younis, and maybe they also have access to places north of there. We don’t know.”

But if Sinwar is in Rafah, “from my experience with the man there is no way he is going to surrender. He will fight to the death. I think that he believes that he will never survive this war. He’s not afraid of death. In fact, he believes that it’s his duty to become a martyr and he will try to kill as many Israelis along the way as possible.”




For the Netanyahu government, however, Rafah represents a stage for political theatre. (Reuters)

According to Baskin, an all-out ground attack on Rafah would be “catastrophic, for any hostages and the civilian population. There’s no doubt about it. I have heard there are about 40,000 people left in the quadrant that Israel said they wanted people to move out of, and you have another 1.2 million at least in the city of Rafah and its surroundings.”

Humanitarian considerations aside, Mekelberg believes that, even if Rafah is attacked and razed to the ground, Sinwar is killed and victory declared, assaulting the city would be a strategic mistake — and would not deliver the hoped-for existential blow to Hamas.

“The main threat to Israel from Hamas comes from its ideology and politics, not from its military,” he told Arab News.




The contrast between the satellite images taken on Monday and Tuesday is striking. (AFP/Maxar Technologies)

“The military you can deal with. But the Israelis need to convince people that this ideology doesn’t serve the Gazan people or Palestinian people generally, and that there is an alternative that offers hope, and it is doing very badly at that right now.

“Israel needs to make Hamas ideologically and politically irrelevant and it is doing exactly the opposite, making them more and more relevant.”

Baskin agrees.

“The only way to defeat the Hamas ideology is with a better ideology, and that is to make the two-state solution real to Palestinians, to show them that their fight, their struggle for independence and dignity, is on the road to victory,” he told Arab News.

That, he added, “is the only way to defeat Hamas” and, with the right leadership in Israel, and an alternative to Mahmoud Abbas for the Palestinians, doing so would be “easy.”

“All Israel has to do is declare that it recognizes the state of Palestine, and then every other country in the world would do that as well,” he said.




“The main threat to Israel from Hamas comes from its ideology and politics, not from its military,” Yossi Mekelberg told Arab News. (AFP)

“Then what I would do is organize a regional conference, including all of our neighbors, hoping that the Saudis would participate, and asking the Americans and Europeans to join in but not to run the show, and negotiate borders and Jerusalem and refugees and economic relations.”

The stumbling block to all this, he says, is Netanyahu, “who since 2009 has done everything he can to avoid the possibility of a two-state solution and for whom this war is definitely about his own personal political interest.”

 


No evidence Hamas stole aid from UN: Israeli military officials

Updated 6 sec ago
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No evidence Hamas stole aid from UN: Israeli military officials

  • Accusations of theft used by Israel to justify control of aid into Gaza found to be baseless
  • Netanyahu govt allowed UN to restart operations after scale of famine, ineffectiveness of GHF aid system became apparent in May

LONDON: Israeli government claims that aid supplied by the UN into Gaza was regularly stolen by Hamas were not substantiated by evidence.

The New York Times said it spoke to two Israeli military officials and two other Israelis with knowledge of the matter on condition of anonymity. They suggested that the UN’s methods for getting aid into the enclave were “largely effective” before Israel sealed off access to the territory in March this year following the collapse of a ceasefire.

Israel and the US backed a new group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, giving it a near-monopoly on delivering aid supplies into Gaza in May. The GHF has been fiercely criticized for its methods by the UN and other global bodies, as well as national governments including the UK and France, amid reports of mass shootings at its distribution centers and independent claims that famine has subsequently swept the enclave.

Israel, which accused UN employees of taking part in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on the country, justified the move by saying aid distributed by the UN and other groups was being taken and stockpiled by Hamas, with Benjamin Netanyahu saying in March: “Hamas is currently taking control of all supplies and goods entering Gaza.”

But, the Israeli officials told the NYT, these claims ran counter to evidence the military had suggesting the UN’s methods of aid delivery were robust.

Hamas was able to steal supplies from smaller aid organizations, they said, because they lacked the planning and security capacity of the UN. A Reuters report on Friday said the US government had reached the same conclusion that Israeli claims the UN was failing to deliver aid because of theft by Hamas were untrue.

Israeli military officials met in March with government advisers to express concerns about the GHF’s ability to distribute aid, urging them to allow continued UN access to areas the GHF was failing to sufficiently supply, the sources told the NYT. 

This request was denied by the Netanyahu administration, but the government later relented, allowing limited UN access to Gaza after the scale of hunger and the ineffectiveness of the GHF began to become apparent.

Since May 19, the Israeli officials told the NYT, half of aid entering Gaza has been overseen by the UN, which was previously the biggest supplier, and other groups, with the rest overseen by the GHF.

Former UN official Georgios Petropoulos, who helped oversee aid coordination with Israel into Gaza for over a year of the war, said: “For months, we and other organizations were dragged through the mud by accusations that Hamas steals from us.”

He added: “If the UN had been taken at face value months ago, we wouldn’t have wasted all this time and Gazans wouldn’t be starving and being shot at trying to feed their families.”

About 1,100 Palestinians have been shot by Israeli soldiers and private contractors at the four GHF aid distribution centers operating in Gaza, according to local health authorities. Many thousands more are at risk of famine, with doctors in the enclave saying malnutrition is rife, especially among children.

The GHF has also been criticized for failing to provide enough aid at the sites it runs.

A group of more than 100 international organizations have warned of “mass starvation,” and urged Israel to lift its restrictions on them delivering aid into Gaza.

On July 23 a group of 28 national governments, including the UK, France and Canada, as well as the EU, signed a statement condemning what they called the “drip-feeding of aid” into Gaza.

Since being permitted access in May, the UN says Israel has also failed to provide enough safe entry routes into Gaza for it to deliver aid.

The Israeli government has accused the UN of not collecting aid supplies based near a border crossing to send into Gaza as a reason for the lack of supplies into the territory.

Earlier this week it refused to extend the visa of senior UN official Jonathan Whittall, who oversees humanitarian affairs in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, over claims he “spread lies about Israel.”

In a statement, the Israeli military said it was “well documented” that Hamas “exploited humanitarian aid to fund terrorist activities.”

Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer claimed this week that there was “no famine caused by Israel” in Gaza, blaming Hamas and the UN for food shortages.

Almost 62,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began operations in Gaza in October 2023. Many thousands more have been wounded, with millions displaced, lacking access to clean water, food, medical aid and shelter.


Jordan signs near-$200m foreign investment agreements in health sector

Updated 13 min 16 sec ago
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Jordan signs near-$200m foreign investment agreements in health sector

  • Deal signed with Saudi Arabia-based KBW Investments

AMMAN: Jordan has signed two major foreign investment agreements in the health sector, worth a combined $187 million, in a move hailed as a significant step toward modernizing healthcare infrastructure and digital services.

Prime Minister Jafar Hassan witnessed the signing ceremony on Saturday alongside Saudi Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed, chairman of KBW Investments, and Maj. Gen. Yousef Huneiti, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Jordan News Agency reported.

The first agreement, between the Jordanian government and KBW Investments, will see the construction of the new Madaba Government Hospital.

The second, a digital transformation project in Royal Medical Services hospitals, was signed between the Jordanian Armed Forces and Farah Jordan Smart Cities Company, in which KBW holds a 49 percent stake.

The agreements represent the first wave of new foreign investment in the sector, with the government indicating plans to expand similar partnerships into areas such as transportation, infrastructure, and additional hospitals.

“This is the first government hospital built in partnership with the private sector after a delay of about 10 years. It is absolutely essential for the people of Madaba Governorate,” said Hassan.

He confirmed that the hospital would be fully government-run, with an initial capacity of 260 beds, expandable to 360, and is scheduled to open within three years.

The agreement to build the hospital was signed by Minister of Investment Muthanna Gharaibeh, Minister of Health Firas Hawari, and KBW’s CEO Ahmad Sallakh. It falls under the Jordan Investment Fund Law and marks the first partnership of its kind in the country between the government and private sector in this domain.

The 13-story hospital will span 54,000 sq. meters and include a wide range of medical facilities such as eight main operating rooms, 60 outpatient clinics, and 18 dialysis units. It will also house emergency and intensive care departments, lithotripsy and endoscopy units, medical laboratories, catheterization laboratories, and offer 830 parking spaces for visitors and staff.

Construction will begin this year, with KBW handling all building works. The government will take on full operational responsibilities, including staffing and equipping the facility.

Payment to the company will begin only after the project is completed, in installments over a 10-year period.

The second agreement focuses on the digitization of RMS facilities, including hospitals, health centers, warehouses, and other medical sites.

It aims to enhance efficiency in drug inventory, reduce waste, and modernize the management of medical assets and supplies. It also targets improved performance in laboratories and radiology services.

The deal was signed by the Assistant Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for Planning, Organization and Defense Resources Brig. Gen. Ammar Al-Sarayrah, and KBW’s CEO Sallakh.

Prince Khaled reaffirmed KBW’s commitment to investing in Jordan, calling it “our second home,” and added that KBW had been investing in the kingdom for over 10 years and was keen to expand across multiple sectors.


The latest child to starve to death in Gaza weighed less than when she was born

Updated 26 min 6 sec ago
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The latest child to starve to death in Gaza weighed less than when she was born

  • The girl had weighed over 3 kilograms when she was born, her mother said
  • When she died, she weighed less than 2 kilograms

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: A mother pressed a final kiss to what remained of her 5-month-old daughter and wept. Esraa Abu Halib’s baby now weighed less than when she was born.

On a sunny street in shattered Gaza, the bundle containing Zainab Abu Halib represented the latest death from starvation after 21 months of war and Israeli restrictions on aid.

The baby was brought to the pediatric department of Nasser Hospital on Friday. She was already dead. A worker at the morgue carefully removed her Mickey Mouse-printed shirt, pulling it over her sunken, open eyes. He pulled up the hems of her pants to show her knobby knees. His thumb was wider than her ankle. He could count the bones of her chest.

The girl had weighed over 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) when she was born, her mother said. When she died, she weighed less than 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds).

A doctor said it was a case of “severe, severe starvation.”

She was wrapped in a white sheet for burial and placed on the sandy ground for prayers. The bundle was barely wider than the imam’s stance. He raised his open hands and invoked Allah once more.

She needed special formula

Zainab was one of 85 children to die of malnutrition-related causes in Gaza in the past three weeks, according to the latest toll released by the territory’s Health Ministry on Saturday. Another 42 adults died of malnutrition-related causes in the same period, it said.

“She needed a special baby formula which did not exist in Gaza,” Zainab’s father, Ahmed Abu Halib, told The Associated Press as he prepared for her funeral prayers in the hospital’s courtyard in the southern city of Khan Younis.

Dr. Ahmed Al-Farah, head of the pediatric department, said the girl had needed a special type of formula that helps with babies allergic to cow’s milk.

He said she hadn’t suffered from any diseases, but the lack of the formula led to chronic diarrhea and vomiting. She wasn’t able to swallow as her weakened immune system led to a bacterial infection and sepsis, and quickly lost more weight.

’Many will follow’

The child’s family, like many of Gaza’s Palestinians, lives in a tent, displaced. Her mother, who also has suffered from malnutrition, said she breastfed the girl for only six weeks before trying to feed her formula.

“With my daughter’s death, many will follow,” she said. “Their names are on a list that no one looks at. They are just names and numbers. We are just numbers. Our children, whom we carried for nine months and then gave birth to, have become just numbers.” Her loose robe hid her own weight loss.

The arrival of children suffering from malnutrition has surged in recent weeks, Al-Farah said. His department, with a capacity of eight beds, has been treating about 60 cases of acute malnutrition. They have placed additional mattresses on the ground.

Another malnutrition clinic, affiliated with the hospital, receives an average of 40 cases weekly, he said.

“Unless the crossings are opened and food and baby formula are allowed in for this vulnerable segment of Palestinian society, we will witness unprecedented numbers of deaths,” he warned.

Doctors and aid workers in Gaza blame Israel’s restrictions on the entry of aid and medical supplies. Food security experts warn of famine in the territory of over 2 million people.

‘Shortage of everything’

After ending the latest ceasefire in March, Israel cut off the entry of food, medicine, fuel and other supplies completely to Gaza for 2 ½ months, saying it aimed to pressure Hamas to release hostages.

Under international pressure, Israel slightly eased the blockade in May. Since then, it has allowed in around 4,500 trucks for the UN and other aid groups to distribute, including 2,500 tons of baby food and high-calorie special food for children, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said last week. Israel says baby formula has been included, plus formula for special needs.

The average of 69 trucks a day, however, is far below the 500 to 600 trucks a day the UN says are needed for Gaza. The UN says it has been unable to distribute much of the aid because hungry crowds and gangs take most of it from its arriving trucks.

Separately, Israel has backed the US-registered Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which in May opened four centers distributing boxes of food supplies. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since May while trying to get food, mostly near those new aid sites, the UN human rights office says.

Much of Gaza’s population now relies on aid.

“There was a shortage of everything,” the mother of Zainab said as she grieved. “How can a girl like her recover?”


Fifty-four children swim from Morocco to Spanish enclave Ceuta

Updated 26 July 2025
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Fifty-four children swim from Morocco to Spanish enclave Ceuta

  • The children, who were mostly Moroccan, were taken to temporary centers in Ceuta
  • On Aug. 26 last year, hundreds of migrants took advantage of a thick mist to swim to Ceuta from neighboring Morocco

MADRID: At least 54 children and about 30 adults swam from Morocco to Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta in rough seas and fog, Spanish television reported on Saturday.

Video footage on Spanish television channel RTVE showed Civil Guard launches making repeated rescue attempts to bring some of the swimmers to safety, while others swam across to the enclave.

The children, who were mostly Moroccan, were taken to temporary centers in Ceuta, where authorities called for help from the central government in dealing with the latest arrivals.

“Don’t leave us alone. This is a matter of state. This has to be resolved,” Juan Rivas of the Ceuta regional government told reporters on Saturday.

On August 26 last year, hundreds of migrants took advantage of a thick mist to swim to Ceuta from neighboring Morocco, local police said. In 2021, one boy was seen floating on empty plastic bottles in his attempt to reach Ceuta.

Spain’s two enclaves on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast, Ceuta and Melilla, share the European Union’s only land borders with Africa. The enclaves sporadically experience waves of attempted crossings by migrants trying to reach Europe.

Moroccan nationals detained during the crossings are immediately sent back to Morocco unless they are underage or seeking asylum.

People from other nationalities are taken to special centers where they are given shelter and released after a few days.

Three years ago, at least 23 people died in a stampede when about 2,000 migrants tried to storm into Melilla, pushing down the border fence.


Britain ‘taking forward’ Gaza food airdrop plan: PM Starmer’s office

Updated 26 July 2025
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Britain ‘taking forward’ Gaza food airdrop plan: PM Starmer’s office

  • The UK will also be taking forward plans to work with partners such as Jordan to airdrop aid

LONDON: British Prime minister Keir Starmer on Saturday spoke to his French and German counterparts and outlined UK plans to get aid to people in Gaza and evacuate sick and injured children, his office said.

“The prime minister set out how the UK will also be taking forward plans to work with partners such as Jordan to airdrop aid and evacuate children requiring medical assistance,” a statement said.