As international diplomats converged on the Middle East on Sunday seeking a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, Israel debated whether to press ahead with a ground invasion of Rafah, Hamas’s last stronghold in the enclave, according to Israeli officials and analysts.
Israeli officials have repeatedly said they plan to move to Rafah, but over the weekend they made clear that they were willing to postpone it if it meant they could secure the release of Israeli hostages taken when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.
Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, said Sunday that while “entering Rafah is important for the long battle against Hamas,” freeing the remaining hostages, estimated to number around 100, “is urgent and much more important”.
As Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken headed to Saudi Arabia on Sunday to meet with officials from a half-dozen Arab countries, a U.S. official said Blinken’s top priority was a ceasefire deal that would include the release of all the hostages.
“It would allow all those hostages to get out,” U.S. national security spokesman John Kirby said on ABC News’ “This Week.” “And, of course, allowing easier access to aid in places in Gaza, particularly in the north. So he’s going to work very, very hard on that.”
Israel has been under intense international pressure – including from the United States – not to invade Rafah, in southern Gaza, where more than a million Palestinians have fled the war and already live in dire conditions.
On Sunday, that pressure seemed to be increasing.
Israeli officials increasingly believe that the International Criminal Court is preparing to issue arrest warrants for senior government officials on charges related to the conflict with Hamas, according to five Israeli and foreign officials. Israeli and foreign officials also believe the court is considering arrest warrants for Hamas leaders.
On Sunday, hours after Blinken left on his trip, President Biden spoke again with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, about ceasefire talks. “The leaders discussed Rafah and the president reiterated his clear position,” the White House said in a statement about the phone call.
The call came three weeks after Biden told Netanyahu that he would reconsider U.S. support for the military campaign in Gaza if Israel did not do more to limit civilian casualties and improve the flow of desperately needed food and other supplies to the battered enclave. . Humanitarian aid to Gaza has increased substantially since then, although US officials acknowledge that much more is needed.
The Israeli military has already begun calling up reserve soldiers for a possible operation in Rafah, and an Israeli official said its army could begin evacuating civilians by the end of the month. But the official said an evacuation could take weeks and that Israel was also using the threat of an imminent military maneuver to pressure Hamas to accept a hostage deal.
Another Israeli official said the government was sending the message that Israel would not wait much longer to reach a deal and that if Hamas wanted to prevent an attack on Rafah, it needed to free the hostages. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential matters.
In recent weeks, as the death toll in Gaza has risen, ceasefire negotiations have appeared stalled. Around 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October. Health officials in Gaza now put the death toll at more than 34,000.
On his trip to the Middle East, Blinken is expected to meet with, among others, officials from Egypt and Qatar. Those countries have acted as intermediaries with Hamas in the ceasefire and hostage negotiations. Blinken will attend a three-day meeting of the World Economic Forum and possibly meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss the war. He then plans to travel to Jordan and Israel.
Egypt, which is particularly concerned about an invasion of Rafah since the city borders its territory, has been consulting with Israel and is pushing a proposal for a two-phase hostage deal, one of the Israeli officials said on Sunday.
That proposal, according to the Israeli official, involves an initial “humanitarian” agreement for Hamas to release the most vulnerable hostages (women, children, the physically and mentally ill and the elderly) in exchange for a temporary ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners. held by Israel.
After that initial phase, the official said, negotiations could begin for a second phase in which all remaining hostages would be returned in exchange for an end to the war.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas, Qatar or Egypt on the details of the proposal. But Hamas and Qatari mediators appear to be increasingly trying to directly engage the Israeli public, perhaps to increase pressure on the government to reach a deal.
In recent days, Hamas released two propaganda videos featuring three of the hostages. And in rare interviews this weekend with two Israeli media outlets, a spokesman for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry blamed both Israel and Hamas for the months of deadlock in talks.
“We expected to see a lot more flexibility,” spokesman Majed al-Ansari told Haaretz, “a lot more seriousness, a lot more commitment from both sides, throughout the process, from day one.”
For Israel, analysts say, the Rafah calculus is complicated.
“Without entering Rafah, it seems that nothing has been achieved,” said Nachman Shai, a former Israeli government minister and military spokesman.
After six months of war, Hamas’s leadership remains largely intact, he said, even if most of its battalions have been dismantled or demoted.
However, a ground invasion of Rafah could have unpredictable results. It could pressure Hamas leaders believed to be hiding there to release the hostages, but it could also lead them to cancel any agreement, Shai said.
The report was contributed by Peter Panadero, Vivek Shankar and Aurelien Breeden.