A former Israeli army officer said this Sunday that if Israel invades Rafah as promised, it will then have to face disastrous consequences inflicted by Hamas.
At the same time as talks are ongoing between Egypt, Qatar, and the US to mediate in Israel-Hamas war and establish a peace plan to end the war, Israel seems determined to expand is invasion to Rafah.in this regard, the head of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas said during a conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Sunday that he expected an IDF operation in Rafah to happen in the coming days.
Asserting that only Washington could stop Israel from attacking Rafah, Abbas said that “we call on the United States of America to ask Israel to not carry on the Rafah attack. America is the only country able to prevent Israel from committing this crime.”
Warning the international community of the consequences of such an attack, Abbas reiterated that he rejects the displacement of Palestinians into Jordan and Egypt and said he is concerned that “once Israel completes its operations in Gaza, it will then attempt to force the Palestinian population out of the West Bank and into Jordan.” Israel claims Rafah is Hamas’ final stronghold, despite the group’s military wing being entrenched across Gaza along with several other resistance factions.
US fruitless efforts to stop the invasion!
In an effort to stop Israel’s invasion of Rafah, the White House has claimed that Israel “has agreed to listen to US concerns” before it launches an invasion of Rafah, where more than 1.5 million people are sheltering.
In an interview with ABC News this Sunday, John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson said that “they [the Israelis] have assured us that they won’t go into Rafah until we’ve had a chance to really share our perspectives and our concerns with them, so we’ll see where that goes.”
In addition, the White House announced that the US secretary of state Antony Blinken left Washington the same day to go to Saudi Arabia “to work with Arab leaders to reach a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.”
However, it seems that neither these words by Kirby nor Blinken’s trip to Riyadh can prevent Netanyahu from invading Rafah. But an attack on Gaza’s southern city is not going to be without a response from Hamas, which can escalate the war and kill the chances for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Invading Rafah will have heavy costs for Israel, ex-Israeli army officials believes!
But as Israel is determined to invade Rafah, the move will surely receive a response from Hamas, which may put Israel into another shock like what happened on October 7.
Addressing this very concerning issue, former Israeli army officer, Major General Israel Ziv, said that “the Rafah invasion poses a high risk, one higher than everything [Israel] did in Gaza, given the fact that Rafah is a very crowded place and difficult to fight in, as well as the US and Egypt’s sensitivity toward it. Besides, Hamas’ military wing is preparing an ambush to confront Israeli forces upon their entry into Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where the army’s long-planned invasion is approaching.”
Hamas is working on a “strategic ambush” for when Israeli troops decide to enter Rafah, Ziv said, adding that this would be a “disaster for Israel.”
These alarming comments by the former Israeli army officer came only two days after several Palestinian resistance factions, including Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement, released a joint statement and promised to confront any upcoming attack on Rafah by the Israeli military.
