of Athena Papakosta

A regional war in the Middle East may have been averted for now, but the Israeli military appears to be preparing for a ground invasion of the city of Rafah, the last stronghold of Hamas, according to the Israeli leadership.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was clear on Sunday night. “We will carry out additional painful strikes on Hamas. And that will happen soon.”

The international community has not hidden its concern about a large-scale operation in the last refuge of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Palestinian enclave, while a few days ago there was a new meeting of top officials of the United States and Israel, which was expected to include a discussion of the plans of Tel Aviv with last week’s information, however, that Israel will not attack Iran in exchange for the green light from the US for an attack on Rafah not to be confirmed.

Over the past 24 hours the situation in the southernmost city in Gaza has become increasingly dangerous with Israeli strikes increasing, raising concerns about an invasion by Israeli ground forces.

An Israeli security official, according to the WallStreet Journal, says the invasion of Rafah is a matter of time with Israeli forces already having a tight operational plan in place which will…run alongside humanitarian aid.

According to the report of the American newspaper, Egyptian sources say that Israel is preparing to move civilians from Rafah to nearby Khan Yunis and other areas where it intends to set up camps with food distribution centers and medical (!) infrastructure.

As also emphasized – according to the same sources – such an operation will last two to three weeks and will be completed with the assistance of the United States, Egypt and other Arab countries, such as the United Arab Emirates.

As for the military operations, the publication states that they will last at least six weeks.

However, the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, responding, last Friday, to questions from journalists, reiterated that the United States “cannot support a major military operation in Rafah” as it “would have enormous consequences” against civilians, while he clarified that Israel’s goals can be achieved in other ways.

The start date of any business remains, of course, unknown.

But it is considered a given that in order to achieve this, the Israeli military leadership will need to increase its forces in the southern part of the Palestinian enclave. Nevertheless, at the beginning of April, the Israeli Armed Forces announced the withdrawal of their forces from the southern part of Gaza.

In addition, the concern of the displaced people who had found refuge in Rafa and have nowhere to go if they need to evacuate in the event of an Israeli army invasion is also a given.

The relationship between the United States and Israel has been tested in recent times. The 19-day crisis following the strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus and Iran’s retaliation against Israeli soil, however, allowed it to regain its balance. Of course, as analysts say, if Netanyahu goes ahead with the attack plan on the border with Egypt without taking into account Washington’s concerns and does not even carry out targeted and well-thought-out strikes, he may push the rift between Washington and Tel Aviv to deepen further.