Hamas will be destroyed in Rafah, against the wishes of the West

Hamas’s agreement on Monday to a ceasefire deal that was never on the table was yet another ruse to buy time and build international pressure to halt a major IDF operation in Rafah. It was a sign of the terrorists’ desperation to prevent the destruction of their final stronghold. An IDF move into Rafah has been delayed far too long. It is the result of months of fruitless negotiations over release of hostages that never showed any sign of materialising. Yet Israel had little option than to play along while even the smallest glimmer of hope existed.

The delay was also brought about by unbearable pressure from the US and other Israeli allies, with Biden repeatedly forbidding an attack on Rafah without what he called a “credible and executable plan” to protect or evacuate the civilian population there. Similar demands were recently parroted by Lord Cameron during a visit to Jerusalem. No plan the IDF drew up ever met Biden’s stipulations, but then no plan could have done so if his real intention was to block the final destruction of Hamas amid growing concerns about adverse effects on his own electoral prospects. Of course one credible plan would have been to allow civilians to take temporary refuge through the Egyptian border into Sinai. Biden could have brought that about by pushing Cairo to agree but neither he nor any other international leader ever even raised a finger to do so. That unforgivable failure, which played right into Hamas’s hands, has contributed to many of the civilian deaths during this war and will likely lead to many more.

Now the IDF has been making preliminary moves against Rafah on the ground and from the air. Quite rightly, Jerusalem has not signalled its immediate intentions. Those may be to shape the battlefield for future large-scale operations, including spurring the civilian population to evacuate Rafah to designated humanitarian zones and adding pressure on Hamas to free the hostages. Nor is it impossible that an apparently inevitable push into Rafah might impel elements of the Hamas leadership to make good their escape from Gaza while they still can. After all, they have witnessed the collapse of every one of their formed fighting units as the IDF advanced through the rest of Gaza. Whether this turns out to be a limited operation or something more sustained, Israel is going to have to deal with Hamas by an offensive in Rafah if it is to achieve its goal of dismantling the terrorist threat to its citizens. One thing we can be sure of is that the US and other Western countries will continue to browbeat Israel not to do so and instead to end the war.

These countries will be pushed further into acting against Israel by two separate phenomena. First, Iran will try to protect its proxies in Gaza by again stepping up aggression from its militant networks in the region. That in turn will raise renewed trepidation in our capitals about escalation and wider conflict. Second, expect demonstrations on university campuses and in the streets to intensify even further. The impact of Gaza-related agitation on some recent local elections in Britain will be fresh in the minds of our politicians. Rishi Sunak says he’s “deeply concerned” about the prospects of a military incursion into Rafah and according to Keir Starmer it “must not go ahead”.

Biden’s trepidation over widespread protests in an election year is only too clear. As the IDF moved against Rafah yesterday, the Biden administration continued its public opposition to Israel’s very objectives in Gaza, with White House spokesman John Kirby saying: “You’re not going to eliminate an ideology through military operations”. This tired mantra is a false argument against pretty much any military solution to any aggressor. Why did the US fight against Isis, which represents the same ideology as Hamas? Why is Ukraine bothering to resist the military manifestation of Putin’s ideology?

It shouldn’t need saying that it is absolutely vital for Israel to eliminate Hamas’s capability to continue translating its twisted ideology into physical violence. That means their physical destruction in Rafah. Israel must push on with its plans and not buckle to international pressure, no matter how great. Failure to do so would amount to nothing less than strategic defeat.