US pressure on Netanyahu
Details of the planned attack on Rafah leak out
April 25, 2024, 8:33 a.m
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Israel has been planning a ground offensive on Rafah in the Gaza Strip for some time. Under pressure from Washington, the country is now changing its plans, as a US newspaper reports. It’s not just Rafah who is troubling President Netanyahu. There are massive protests after a new hostage video.
According to a media report, Israel wants to carry out its announced ground offensive on the city of Rafah in the south of the sealed-off Gaza Strip in stages. As the Wall Street Journal reports, citing Egyptian officials and former Israeli officers, Israel changed its initial plans for a full-scale attack on the city on the border with Egypt, currently crowded with hundreds of thousands of Palestinian internally displaced people, under pressure from the United States and other countries. Instead, the number of civilian casualties should be limited by taking a step-by-step approach, it said.
Israel’s military does not comment on its operational plans. However, a few days ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced “further painful blows” against the Islamist Hamas. “And this will happen shortly,” he said.
The UN humanitarian coordinator in Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, warned of an attack on Rafah. “Such an action would worsen an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, with consequences for people who are already displaced and enduring great hardship and suffering,” the Dutchwoman told the UN Security Council in New York. “The United Nations’ ability to deliver aid would be restricted.”
Meeting in Cairo
The news portal “Axios”, citing Israeli officials, reported that senior Israeli intelligence and military officials met in Cairo on Wednesday with, among others, the Egyptian intelligence chief to discuss Israel’s planned deployment of its army in Rafah.
The evening before, the chairman of the Egyptian state information service SIS, Diaa Raschwan, had declared that there were no discussions with Israel about its possible military offensive in Rafah. Egypt firmly rejects plans for such an offensive and has made this position clear several times. An offensive in Rafah would lead to “massacres, massive loss of life and widespread destruction,” Rashwan said. According to an earlier report in the Wall Street Journal, Egypt has even threatened to terminate its peace treaty with Israel if there is an influx of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip across the border.
Protests after hostage video released
Meanwhile, protests broke out in Israel after Hamas released a hostage video on Wednesday evening. Hundreds of people gathered in Jerusalem near Prime Minister Netanyahu’s residence to demonstrate for the release of hostages held in Gaza, several media outlets reported. There were clashes with the police. Protesters set fires, set off fireworks, overturned trash cans and blocked traffic, officials said. Four people were arrested, it said.
In the video previously released by Hamas, a 24-year-old man can be seen making serious accusations against the Israeli government. The man says she failed to protect Israeli citizens and let them down. Those like him who were kidnapped from Israel to the Gaza Strip in the Hamas massacre on October 7th are in an “underground hell” without food, water and medical treatment.
The man is missing a forearm. According to Israeli media, this was demolished when the terrorists threw grenades into its hiding place. He is reportedly a dual Israeli and American citizen. It is unclear under what circumstances the video was made and whether the man spoke under pressure or threats. The video recording was also not dated; the Hamas massacre was 201 days ago on Wednesday.
Until a few weeks ago, Israel assumed that almost 100 of the approximately 130 remaining hostages were still alive. But there are now fears that significantly more of them could already be dead.
Report: Israel army not responsible for mass grave in Gaza
Meanwhile, reports continue to cause a stir about a mass grave discovered near the Nasser Hospital in the long-contested city of Khan Yunis, in which the Hamas-controlled civil defense says it has now uncovered 324 bodies. However, contrary to Hamas’ claims, it was not created by the Israeli army, reports the “Jerusalem Post”, citing analyzes of image material.
The mass grave already existed before Israeli soldiers took action against Hamas on the ground there. This was revealed by the evaluation of satellite images and film material by unnamed independent analysts, it said. Claims spread by Hamas and Arab media that Israeli soldiers buried the bodies of Palestinians to “hide” them were false, the newspaper wrote. The information cannot currently be independently verified.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, was horrified by the reports of the discovery of mass graves near clinics in Gaza and called for an independent investigation into the background to the deaths. According to Türk’s office, which cited civil defense information, some of the bodies had their hands tied. “We don’t know whether they were buried alive or executed. Most of the bodies have decomposed,” CNN quoted the head of civil defense in Khan Yunis as saying.