Mairav Zonzsein is a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group.
Most people in the world had probably never heard of Rafah before this year. But now, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip is one of the most talked-about places on Earth, or at least one of the most cited in the news.
No one who saw the images of the burnt bodies pulled out of the flames of displaced-person tent camps, sparked by an Israeli strike targeting two Hamas officials in a nearby structure, will be able to unsee the horror. It is not, however, much different from the litany of continuing horrors we have witnessed throughout this war, including the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7. What makes this moment in Rafah different is the amount of focus and attention it has received, and what Rafah represents, nearly eight months into what is becoming a grinding war of attrition.
Israel’s occupation of Rafah will not constitute a breakthrough in its war to defeat Hamas and return the Israeli hostages, as I wrote in February. But it does underscore the extent to which Israel is willing and able to operate freely and audaciously in defiance of international outrage, and despite allegations of war crimes. The international court of public opinion has not meaningfully affected Israeli actions, which is not surprising considering the level of hubris and impunity with which it has continued to operate for years – but it is nonetheless disturbing and perplexing.
After months of threatening to do so, and amid increasing global pressure to reach a ceasefire, even from within Israel among those advocating an immediate hostage deal, Israel began its ground invasion of Rafah in May, taking only partial heed of U.S. calls to protect civilians. It displaced nearly a million Palestinians who have been sheltering there, and incrementally intensified its operation, now claiming to have control over the length of the border between Gaza and Egypt.
Israel’s leaders see controlling this 14-kilometre-long corridor as a strategic necessity to stop the flow of weapons into the Strip, just as they view taking apart the last Hamas battalions there to be a security imperative. They are facing a tough challenge: there is no obvious way to deal with Hamas, which shares responsibility for the situation in Gaza. Yet as military experts have argued, and as members of Israel’s own war cabinet have said publicly, taking Rafah will not be decisive – just as Israel’s operations throughout Gaza have not been decisive – unless Israel and other key actors identify a viable path forward for governance in Gaza.
According to reports, U.S. intelligence believes that the majority of Hamas combatants are still alive and that most tunnels are still intact. As Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned, without a strategy for postwar governance, Israel is on a path toward full military and civilian occupation of the Strip, a long-term and costly endeavour that the far-right in Israel wants, but many Israelis likely do not. But they aren’t protesting in the streets about that. And no proposed alternative has gained any political traction.
Do Israeli leaders truly believe operating in Rafah is worth the further risk to Israel’s already deeply damaged reputation? Does the Israeli establishment not fear even more criminal charges against its political and military leadership – not to mention the trajectory of global public opinion against Israel that is already starting to have consequences for every single Israeli thinking twice about where they travel, as well as many Jews around the world? Is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu so focused on his own political survival that he discounts these risks?
Many Israelis believe so, and blame Mr. Netanyahu for taking the country in this direction, calling for elections. But it is too easy to put all the blame on one man. Sure, he has gone too far, but he stands at the centre of concentric circles of actors and enablers, from a public that has supported the war even as its humanitarian costs have become increasingly clear, to a military that has fought it, to a political culture that has acquiesced in long-running policies of occupation and dispossession, increasingly fuelled by violence and lawlessness. Finally, Israel has been empowered by Western supporters, with the U.S. at their centre, that have turned a blind eye to Israeli infractions. The recent White House statement that Israel’s operation in Rafah has yet to cross a “red line” is a case in point.
The question everyone is left with, from Palestinians and increasing numbers of Israelis to U.S. President Joe Biden, is: what will make it stop?