The Americans told the Israelis that it would take many months to convince people in Rafah, with its 1.2 million inhabitants (the numbers swollen by those fleeing fighting in the north), to evacuate the city so that the IDF could enter in force. As has happened before, the IDF went ahead anyway, and it has managed to exceed all the predictions of the Bidenites. In just two weeks, 950,000 habitants of the city have now left for safe places further north in Al-Muwasi and central Gaza. More on this feat can be found here: “IDF succeeds in evacuating almost 1 million from Rafah in 2 weeks,” by Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post, May 20, 2024:

The IDF has succeeded in evacuating around 950,000 Palestinian civilians in only two weeks since May 6, the military revealed on Monday.

In addition, around 30-40% of Rafah is now under IDF control, not merely a small portion of the eastern sector, and about 60-70% of Rafah has been completely evacuated.

The remaining Rafah civilians, estimated at around 300,000-400,000, are almost all near the Gaza coast Tel al-Sultan area.

This is despite US predictions that the civilian population could not be evacuated without a huge death count or without needing around four months to do so.

Both predictions by the Bidenites were wrong. There has been no “huge death count”; the number of civilians killed in Rafah in the last two weeks is less than one hundred. And it took not four months, as the Americans warned, but two weeks, to persuade 950,000 of them to leave.

Of those evacuated, the overwhelming majority moved northwest to al-Muwasi, less than six miles away, while a smaller number moved to central Gaza.

A much less significant number returned to Khan Yunis, though that had been discussed as a real possibility for potentially hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Regarding the battle, though there certainly is significant resistance from the four Hamas battalions in Rafah, the IDF said it had mostly taken them by surprise….

Hamas had been counting on most of the civilian population of Rafah leaving over a period of months, which would have forced the IDF to delay its assault. Instead, the flow of Gazans from Rafah to refuges further north was much faster than Hamas had anticipated, and so, as a consequence, was the IDF’s attack.

The Hamas battalions in Rafah have been demoralized after seeing the IDF’s relentless dismantlement of Hamas forces in north and central Gaza during the last seven months; they have been worn down, too, by seeing the unstoppable stream of Gazans fleeing from the city, and by the need to be constantly on the alert, over so many months, for attacks by the IDF that never came, but that Hamas forces in Rafah had no way of knowing would not be inflicted until the last stage of the IDF invasion.

Next, the IDF has taken control of the majority, though not all, of the Philadelphi Corridor with Egypt….

The Philadelphi Corridor runs 8.7 miles between Egypt and Gaza. With control of this corridor, the IDF can more easily prevent weapons from being smuggled into Gaza. Until now, the tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor have been the most important route for Hamas’ weapons smuggling.

Despite Egypt’s anger at Israel for the Rafah operation and its closing the Rafah Crossing regarding humanitarian aid, the IDF said that military relations on the ground with Cairo have remained strong, and there have been no violent incidents between the sides.

Other than a tiny number, there have also been no Palestinians penetrating into Egypt, which had been Cairo’s biggest fear….

There is no love lost between El-Sisi’s regime in Egypt and the Palestinians in Gaza, whom the Egyptians regard, accurately, as overwhelmingly in favor of Hamas, which Egypt sees as a local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. And as we remember from the coup by Sisi and other army officers that overthrew Mohamed Morsi, an MB member, in 2013, the current leaders of Egypt are determined to minimize the power of the MB and of its Palestinian succursale, Hamas. Egypt intends to keep the Gazans out of Egypt, for they are seen as a disruptive and dangerous force.

In Rafah, the IDF had first to create, and then to keep open and secure, corridors, so that nearly a million refugees could leave the city and safely transfer to places the IDF had readied for them further north such as al-Muwasi. It also had to fight off attacks by Hamas, directed both at the IDF and at Gazans trying to flee. And the presence just a mile away of Egyptian troops on the other side of the Philadelphi Corridor was also worrying; there was always the chance of an Israeli shell or rocket misfiring, that might hit Egyptian troops, and causing a major incident.

Besides Rafah, the IDF said it caught Hamas by surprise when it reinvaded Jabalia. There, it said that the civilians were moved in a much shorter time than from Rafah, with warnings issued in the morning, and the invasion starting in the afternoon on the same day….

The IDF discovered that Hamas had returned to Jabalia, and this time, the IDF went much more quickly into the camp — allowing only a few hours for civilians to move out — and deeper, too, in order to root out Hamas operatives who had never left Jabalia.

The IDF is trying to root out both the four intact battalions in Rafah and roughly two battalions that have regrouped in the north, in Jabalia and in Gaza City. It believes it has now taken apart 18 of the 24 battalions which Hamas had in Gaza on October 7. Despite Biden’s attempt to pressure Israel not to invade Rafah by withholding weapons, the Israelis are ready, if necessary, to do without those American bombs and shells. They are convinced that they need to destroy the four Hamas battalions in Rafah; otherwise, Hamas will regroup and try to emulate the October 7 atrocities “again and again.”

There are so many variables for the IDF to consider during this last phase of the war in Gaza. Iran is now said to be able “within a week” to produce a nuclear weapon. How much more time would it need to produce a thermonuclear warhead and the missile to deliver it? Will Hezbollah, which has 150,000 rockets and missiles supplied to it by Iran, continue to hold back, or will Iran give it the signal to let loose on Israel with that vast armory, in an attempt to overwhelm the IDF’s multi-tiered anti-missile defense system, including David’s Sling, Arrows 2,3, and 4, Iron Dome, and Iron Beam? Should the IDF attack Hezbollah’s weapons sites with massive air raids before those weapons can be used? Will the Bidenites continue to hold back weapons from the Jewish state in an attempt to prevent Israel from finishing off Hamas in Rafah, or perhaps even to prevent it from launching a preemptive strike, on Hezbollah’s weapons hiding-places, or on Iran’s nuclear sites, or on both at the same time?

Questions, questions. Life-and-death questions.

AUTHOR

HUGH FITZGERALD

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