“There is the date” –

After pressure from the political forces allied in the government, the announcement arrived. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there is a date for troops to enter the city of Rafah. Netanyahu reiterated that “total victory over Hamas requires entry into Rafah”. In the hours preceding the Minister for National Security, the extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir had declared that “without an operation in Rafah we will bring down the government”. The United States confirmed its opposition to a major Israeli Rafah operation with a statement from the spokesperson of the US State Department.

The United States has strongly reiterated its opposition to any Israeli operation in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had set “a date” for the invasion. “We have made it clear to Israel that we believe a massive military invasion of Rafah would have an extremely harmful effect on these civilians and would ultimately harm Israel’s security,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that a date has been set for an offensive on the city of Rafah, which Israel says is one of the last Hamas strongholds in the Gaza Strip. Victory over the Palestinian Islamic movement “requires entering Rafah and eliminating the terrorist battalions there. This will be done – there is a date,” the Israeli prime minister said in a video statement. The United States and many other countries fear for the safety of the more than 1.5 million Gazans who have found refuge in this area in the far south of the Gaza Strip, near the closed border with Egypt. “It’s not just about Israel presenting us with a plan. We have made it clear to them that we believe there is a better way to achieve a legitimate objective, which is to dismantle and defeat the Hamas battalions that are still in Rafah,” Miller added.