How far will Netanyahu go in Rafah to appease his hardline coalition?

Having expected Hamas to reject – not accept – a ceasefire deal, the Israeli prime minister was primed to launch his long-planned offensive on Rafah. Will he now bow to pressure from the US and the families of Israeli hostages and hold off the assault? Kim Sengupta reports

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Reuters)

Speaking recently in Tel Aviv, a close ally of Benjamin Netanyahu declared it would be “unthinkable” not to carry out a military offensive in Rafah to crush Hamas even if further hostage releases take place. This is what appears to be unfolding on the ground now.

An imperative for moving into Rafah, said the very senior official, was the suspicion that Hamas was using tunnels in the area to smuggle weapons into Gaza with senior commanders directing the conflict from the city.

On Tuesday morning, 12 hours after sealing off the border to Egypt with an armoured column, the Israeli military announced that it had already located three such tunnels, and expected to find more of them. A hunt, they continued, was underway to track down Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, the two Hamas chiefs who are yet to be killed or captured seven months into the war.

Israel has faced insistent demands from the US and other Western countries including the UK, Sunni Arab states with which it wants to build relations, as well as the UN and aid agencies to stop an offensive into Rafah – an attack which could lead to a humanitarian catastrophe to add to the terrible suffering in Gaza, where the death toll has risen to almost 35,000.

Netanyahu’s government has steadfastly rejected the calls to desist. It has, at the same time, attended the interminable ceasefire negotiations in Doha and now Cairo. Time has been an important factor in this. The latest round, in the Egyptian capital, was expected to go on for some while, scope enough for the Rafah mission to get underway.

Netanyahu’s announcement that the Rafah offensive would go ahead even if there was a truce made the chances of an agreement seem distant, as did a rocket attack on Rafah on the same day by Hamas which killed four Israeli soldiers, followed by Israeli air strikes in which 19 Palestinians died.

Hamas, it was believed, would be unable to agree to the terms on offer. All this was turned on its head on Monday when Hamas announced that it had accepted the deal and the ball was now very much in Israel’s court. There was an immediate call from Arab states for Israel to follow suit. The Biden administration expressed cautious approval, saying it was waiting for further details.

The devil was in the detail, and the details themselves were uncertain. What exactly had Hamas agreed to?

Israel is set to launch an offensive on the city of Rafah which has already suffered significant destruction (AP)

According to one account, the militant group accepted an initial month-long ceasefire during which 33 Israeli hostages in Gaza would be freed in return for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, including those serving life sentences after being convicted of terrorism and murder. A second phase in which talks would focus on ending the war and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza; and a final one where the subjects would be reconstruction and return of civilians to their home areas.

The reaction by the Israeli government showed it was unprepared for the Hamas statement. One senior official said it was being scrutinised to see if Hamas “ was serious” about a deal. But this was followed by a statement from Netanyahu saying it did nothing to address core Israeli concerns.

He went on to state later that, “ending the war and leaving Hamas intact – the State of Israel cannot accept that. We are not prepared to accept a situation in which the Hamas brigades come out of their bunkers, take control of Gaza again, rebuild their military infrastructure, and return to threatening the citizens of Israel.”

The Netanyahu government is sending a delegation to the talks in Cairo. But, as an Israeli official told Reuters “this delegation is made up of mid-level envoys. Were there a credible deal in the offing, the principals would be heading the delegation.”

Hard-right ministers in Netanyahu’s right-wing governing coalition condemned the despatch to the talks. Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, said: “Sending the delegation to Cairo is a mistake and falls into the manipulative trap set by Hamas together with Qatar and Egypt. This is the time to press more and more on the neck of Yahya Sinwar and Hamas until they are destroyed. You must not give in to international pressure and you must not stop until victory and the submission of the enemy.”

Netanyahu, as has been mentioned often, depends on the support of people like Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the security minister, for his government’s survival. But how far does he go to placate them?

Dennis Ross, a former US Middle East envoy, pointed out that others in the government may leave if Netanyahu continues to block a deal. “That doesn’t bring the government down the way Smotrich and Ben-Gvir would, but it may set in motion a set of events in Israel that I think could put the government at risk. At a certain point, he needs to choose Biden over Ben-Gvir, he needs to choose the hostages over Smotrich,” he said.

Some Israeli officials hold that the US was aware of the proposals that Egypt and Qatar had put forward to Hamas, but had failed to brief Israel before the Palestinian group accepted them. They further claim that the Americans had encouraged Hamas to believe that a hostage deal will lead to the end of the war.

The State Department denied this. It said in a statement: “We continue to believe that a hostage deal is in the best interest of the Israeli and the Palestinian people; it would bring an immediate ceasefire and allow increased humanitarian assistance into Gaza.”

Families of hostages have been holding protest marches and pressing the government to accept a ceasefire in return for the captives being freed.

Sharone Lifschitz, whose 83-year-old father Oded is among those being held, said: “If it doesn’t happen now, it is going to take very long. We know some of them are dead, we know that they are in harm’s way every day and every hour. We need to find a way to negotiate long-term deals to provide the security of citizens of Israel and Palestine. I urge the government to do all it can to bring back our people.”

It seems unlikely for now that pressure, external or internal, will stop Benjamin Netanyahu’s government from embarking on the Rafah offensive unless there is a sudden breakthrough in the talks. But, as the last 24 hours have shown, hopes of peace breaking out can be dashed just as suddenly.