Israel ended months of terrified speculation on Monday evening, when its tanks moved into the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt. By morning, the army had claimed control of the crossing, and the operation near the town of Rafah had begun.
The move seems ill-advised. Israel’s allies have warned that attacking Rafah will bring fresh disaster for more than a million Palestinians sheltering there. On Wednesday, US president Joe Biden announced that he would cut the supply of weapons needed for a full offensive, representing the greatest American threat to Israel’s interest in decades. And while Israel claims it must enter Rafah to destroy four Hamas battalions there, even Israeli experts doubt that the operation will be a game-changer: it could be “tactical at best”, according to a former Mossad figure, and once it’s over, Hamas will creep back in as it has in other parts of Gaza.
