News from the battlefield: Israel attacks edge of Rafah, meanwhile Hamas recovers elsewhere

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The interactive map, which shows Israel’s advance as confirmed by the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW), has changed little from the last installment of Gaza Battlefield News.

Nevertheless, the new shift in the southeast of the Gaza Strip marks the beginning of a new phase of the war and is therefore very important.

The Jewish state appears to have launched an attack on the city of Rafah that was announced by the government and criticized by foreign allies. According to Tel Aviv, the last remnants of the fighters and the leadership of Hamas are hiding there, but at the same time there live about a million civilians who fled to the city from other war-torn places in the Gaza Strip.

From the available information, it seems so far that Israeli soldiers and tanks have reached the eastern suburbs and are roughly at the border of the densely built-up area.

According to satellite images from Planet Labs on Tuesday, Israeli tanks entered the border crossing with Egypt (the Rafah crossing), where some of the videos released by the Israeli army originate, and were also seen about two kilometers north of it.

In the vicinity of the crossing, which is located on the southeastern edge of the city, a number of traces of aerial or other strikes can also be seen in the form of rising smoke and damaged buildings.

The New York Times, in its analysis of the aforementioned satellite images, states that the damage visible in the vicinity of several kilometers of the Rafah crossing is very similar to the consequences of other Israeli army clearing operations in other parts of the Gaza Strip.

According to Israeli media, about 10 tunnels were destroyed in the area and 50 fighters of Hamas or other Palestinian groups were killed. The army also said that one tunnel was detonated by Hamas itself, injuring three Israelis.

The ISW (as well as the Israeli army) still referred to the offensive as a “limited operation” on Thursday. In addition to the aforementioned, according to ISW, Hamas in this area mainly resisted by indirect fire from a distance. According to Palestinian journalists, Israeli bulldozers were also to be seen at the site.

On Friday, according to Reuters, Israeli tanks occupied the main road leading from the Rafah crossing to the north, encircling essentially the entire eastern edge of the city, which Israel ordered to evacuate on Monday. According to witnesses, Friday’s fighting was supposed to be the toughest since the start of the operation.

According to the available information, it seems that Israel is currently teetering on the edge of US President Joe Biden’s ultimatum. He warned the Israeli government that if its army expands ground operations to the city of Rafah, the United States will stop supplying offensive weapons.

Washington also confirmed on Wednesday that it had already suspended deliveries of aerial bombs because Israel had used them in attacks that killed civilians.

However, in an interview with CNN, Biden clarified that he considers the extension of the ground operation directly into the city of Rafah to be a “red line”. And that by occupying the crossing, which lies on the edge of the city, Israel has not yet crossed this red line.

Since it is not known exactly where the alleged red line should lie, nor the exact current position of the Israeli troops, all that can be said is that Israel is currently somewhere on the border of what Biden still called permissible.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already declared, among other things, that if necessary, Israel will fight “tooth and nail” even without American weapons. So far, however, he has not extended the evacuation zone from where civilians are supposed to leave, beyond the eastern edge of the city, which he ordered to be cleared already on Monday. So it seems that expanding the attacks further into the city is not in the cards, at least for the next few hours.

According to the UN, about 110,000 people have fled the city since Monday. They are supposed to go to an expanded humanitarian zone, but there are doubts about its readiness.

In addition, according to the UN and the US, no humanitarian aid flows through the border crossings (Rafah and nearby Kerem Shalom) and hospital staff there report a critical lack of basic necessities.

In addition to the situation in the south, ISW also notes the recent resumption of clean-up operations in the far north.

The Israeli military said it attacked Hamas sniper positions and observation posts in Gaza City’s Zaytoun neighborhood on Wednesday, and Palestinian social media accounts said civilians were fleeing the neighborhood, according to the institute.

ISW adds that this is the third time that the Israeli army has launched a clearing operation in this location, which shows that Hamas is able to recover even where Israel has repeatedly tried to drive it out. “Almost certainly, Hamas is trying to resume its activities in the vicinity of Khan Yunis, from where the IDF left in April this year,” ISW pointed out.

According to him, this development adds more weight to the earlier estimates of his analysts, who believe that the same will happen in Rafah.

“Hamas is likely counting on the same recovery in Rafah as it did in the northern Gaza Strip,” the ISW report said.