US concerns taken into account?
Israel is likely to restrict its planned Rafah offensive
May 22, 2024, 3:38 a.m
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US government circles have leaked that Israel is putting its plans for a large-scale Rafah offensive on hold. There should be future operations against Hamas, but on a smaller scale. This took into account many of the allies’ concerns.
According to media reports, Israel has adapted its controversial military action in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip to the demands of its ally the USA for limited operations. “It is fair to say that the Israelis have updated their plans. They have taken into account many of the concerns we have raised,” the newspaper “Times of Israel” quoted a senior US government official as saying overnight. The “Washington Post” had also previously reported that Israel had decided, after talks with the US government, to abandon plans for a major offensive in the city bordering Egypt and instead proceed on a smaller scale.
An earlier plan to send two Israeli army divisions to the city will not be pursued, the US newspaper reported, citing unnamed US officials. Israel’s leadership wants to destroy the last battalions of the Islamist Hamas suspected to be there in Rafah. After more than seven months of war, Rafah is the last halfway intact city in the sealed-off Gaza Strip.
The US rejects a major Israeli ground offensive there. Israel’s army began a ground operation in the east of the city two weeks ago. According to the Times of Israel, the military’s latest estimates indicate that around 950,000 Palestinians have left Rafah since then. There are currently around 300,000 to 400,000 civilians there. Before the Israeli army began its invasion, more than a million internally displaced people from other parts of the Gaza Strip had sought shelter in Rafah.
UNRWA suspends aid deliveries
Meanwhile, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) temporarily suspended food distribution in Rafah. The UN agency cited delivery bottlenecks and the security situation as reasons. According to media reports, Egypt is withholding humanitarian aid due to Israel’s actions in Rafah. The border crossing there, through which aid previously reached Gaza, is closed after Israeli forces took control of the Palestinian side.
This has made the Kerem Shalom border crossing even more important as a bottleneck for aid supplies to Gaza, but according to Politico, Egypt has stopped all deliveries via this crossing point. Egyptian officials have been urging Israeli leaders for months not to press ahead with a ground offensive in Rafah because it would cause chaos near the Egyptian border and threaten the country’s security, it said. Aid supplies are now piling up on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, wrote the Times of Israel. Egypt has indicated it will not coordinate the movement of aid through Rafah until Israeli troops leave, according to media reports.