Israel's Rafah invasion
Did Israel make the right decision by invading Rafah? Viewpoints from across the spectrum.
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What’s happening
On May 6, Israel began a targeted military offensive on Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city on the border with Egypt. The operation began on the outskirts and eastern part of the city and has grown in intensity over the past 10 days.
Officials from the Biden administration, which had warned Israel against a more full-scale invasion of Rafah and paused a weapons shipment to dissuade one, said as of Tuesday it does not take issue with the current operation.
Rafah, normally home to a population of 280,000, had ballooned to an estimated 1.5M people from the addition of refugees fleeing other parts of Gaza prior to the offensive. The city has been a focal point in what aid groups see as a growing humanitarian crisis. An estimated 600,000 Palestinians have been displaced from Rafah since the Rafah offensive began.
Israel, with a stated goal of eliminating Hamas, says the Rafah operation is critical to destroying the four remaining Hamas battalions believed to be located there. Israeli officials say the operation so far has been precise in order to limit civilian casualties.
This week, we break down notable viewpoints supportive of the Rafah invasion and notable viewpoints opposed to it. Debate centers around its humanitarian, security, and diplomatic implications.
Notable viewpoints
Supportive of the Rafah invasion:
Taking Rafah is critical for eliminating Hamas and its threat to Israel.
Rafah is a crucial stronghold for Hamas where its leaders including Yahya Sinwar are believed to be hiding, its four remaining battalions with an estimated 5,000-8,000 combatants are located, and where it controls incoming aid and smuggles military supplies into Gaza.
If Hamas retains control of Rafah, it could rearm and work its way through the tunnel system north to restore its power throughout Gaza.
An extended ceasefire without the complete destruction of Hamas would be a complete failure of the Israeli government and its right to continue in its current form. (Summarized from statements by Israeli political leaders.)
Hamas must be destroyed in order to prevent it from executing future Oct 7-style massacres that it has publicly promised and taking Rafah is critical to destroying Hamas.
The Rafah offensive is necessary to recover the remaining hostages.
Without invading Rafah, Israel would be subject to unreasonable demands from Hamas for returning hostages and its failure to eliminate the organization would enable Hamas to claim victory as the only Palestinian organization to defeat Israel.
Previous invasions on other Hamas strongholds have compelled Hamas to release hostages; Hamas released 105 hostages after Israel invaded Gaza City in November.
The Rafah offensive is necessary to reach an acceptable ceasefire.
Hamas has no reason to accept a ceasefire without a realistic threat to Rafah, and there can be no lasting ceasefire if Hamas is able to retain control of Gaza.
A victory in Rafah would shift the strategic balance of the war and give Israel more leverage in negotiations with the remainder of Hamas and Arab countries, many of which quietly support the destruction of Hamas.
Hamas’s ceasefire proposal (ultimately turned down by Israel) came when it realized Israel was serious about invading Rafah, a sign that Hamas will bend when its back is against the wall.
Failing to destroy Hamas will project Israel as weak and threaten its future security.
Failing to take Rafah and destroy Hamas could make Israel look weak and threaten its security against potentially emboldened adversaries such as Hezbollah.
Giving in to US pressure to hold off on a full-scale invasion of Rafah aides Hamas and fits into its plan of surviving Israel’s response to its Oct 7 attack without the ultimate consequence of defeat.
Failing to take Rafah and destroy Hamas would make it nearly impossible for alternative replacement forces such as Saudi or Palestinian Authority/Fatah to enforce order in Gaza without attack from Hamas.
Controlling Rafah’s border with Egypt is critical to prevent arms smuggling by Hamas and ensure aid gets to Palestinian civilians.
Rafah is central to Hamas’s weapons smuggling through the Egyptian border and must be controlled in order to limit its ability to resupply its military.
Allowing Hamas to control Rafah will continue to limit the aid that makes it into Palestinian civilians’ hands through the Rafah crossing.
Intervening in Rafah now will help lay the groundwork for improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza and repair a region that has caused suffering for its people by years of Hamas neglect.
Israel is making significant efforts to limit civilian casualties.
Israel has implemented greater measures to prevent civilian casualties in urban warfare than any military in history including the use of precision-guided munitions, “roof knocking” (dropping small non-explosive munitions on building rooftops), texting/calling civilians ahead of operations, and dropping leaflet warnings.
Opposed to the Rafah invasion:
The Rafah invasion exacerbates an already desperate humanitarian situation.
Israel’s Rafah operation and blocking of humanitarian aid through key border crossings is exacerbating a dire shortage of fuel, which hinders everything from food distribution, hospital operation, and sewage treatment for 1.7M displaced Gazans.
With famine already having begun in parts of Gaza, the Rafah invasion will create a “humanitarian apocalypse” for the estimated 1.5M Palestinian civilians that were living in the city prior to the offensive.
Israel’s Rafah offensive has interrupted the humanitarian response, violating UN Security Council measure 2720 and an International Court of Justice order that Israel provide basic humanitarian services in Gaza.
An immediate ceasefire is critical to limit further civilian death.
A permanent ceasefire is the only solution to ending the horrors for Palestinian civilians in Gaza and Rafah must be a definitive red line at which President Biden ends unconditional US weapons and military assistance.
“Some 1.5 million [Palestinians] are in Rafah with nowhere else to go…And yet, there is a glimmer of hope: the campus protests taking place across the US, Europe and other places…The need for an end to the genocide, accountability, and meaningful change has never been more pressing.” (Ghada Ageel, Professor of Political Science at University of Alberta and Palestinian.)
A full-scale Rafah invasion will threaten the lives of the remaining hostages.
A full-scale invasion of Rafah could risk the lives of the remaining hostages still held by Hamas and derail negotiations for their release. (Summarized from letter from 37 House of Representatives Democrats to President Biden urging him to dissuade a full-scale Rafah invasion.)
Israel’s forced civilian evacuations from Rafah are inhumane.
Evacuation orders for Palestinians in Rafah are inhumane and inconsistent with international humanitarian law when they have nowhere safe to go in Gaza. (Summarized from statement by Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner of Human Rights.)
International humanitarian law requires “displacements are temporary and that displaced persons are provided with satisfactory conditions of hygiene, health, safety and nutrition, and members of the same family must not be separated;” Israel’s forced evacuations of Rafah violate these standards.
The Rafah incursion risks damaging diplomatic ties with allies and escalating the conflict.
The Rafah offensive risks damaging relations with an already frustrated Egypt, which faces risks to its security from potential mass displacement of Palestinian refugees and the spill of Hamas fighters into the country.
Bringing Egypt into the war through violence and displacement at its border could further escalate the war into a broader regional conflict.
A full-scale invasion of Rafah with mass civilian casualties risks derailing a potential deal to normalize the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which would be one of the most effective paths to long-term Israeli security and peacekeeping in Gaza.
The Rafah offensive will not successfully destroy Hamas.
The taking of Rafah will not result in the destruction of Hamas, which has returned to guerilla tactics and begun to demonstrate its ability to continue fighting for months or years.
“[President Biden] doesn’t want to see American weapons used in that kind of operation. That’s not to say that he is going to abandon Israel or cut them off from weapons. He was focused on a particular operation that he doesn’t believe will succeed in defeating Hamas and that will cause grievous harm.” (Jake Sullivan, White House national security adviser, on President Biden’s decision to pause a delivery of ammunition to Israel.)
A full-scale Rafah invasion will hurt Israel’s broader objectives for long-term security.
Attempting to eradicate Hamas without a plan for governance and peacekeeping in Gaza is untenable, and is likely to yield an insurgency and “forever war.”
A full-scale invasion of Rafah and further civilian casualties would likely strengthen the genocide case against Israel currently being reviewed by the International Court of Justice.
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