United States – The Washington Post reported that the American administration made an offer to Israel to help it locate the leaders of the “Palestinian faction movement” and to abandon the storming of the city of Rafah.
According to the newspaper, the Biden administration, which is working urgently to stave off a large-scale Israeli invasion of Rafah, has promised to provide valuable assistance to Israel if it backs down, including sensitive intelligence information to help the Israeli army locate the leaders of the faction movement, and find the group’s hidden tunnels.
US officials also offered to help provide thousands of shelters so that Israel can build camps, and to help build food, water and medicine delivery systems, so that Palestinians evacuated from Rafah can have a liveable place.
Biden and his top aides have been making such offers over the past few weeks, hoping to convince Israel to carry out a limited, more targeted operation in southern Gaza City, where some 1.3 million Palestinians are taking shelter after fleeing other parts of the Strip.
Israel has vowed to enter Rafah with “excessive force,” and this week Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took a number of steps that raised concerns in the White House that the long-promised invasion could be carried out.
Administration officials, including experts from the US Agency for International Development, have told Israel that it will take several months to safely resettle hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, who now live in dilapidated and unsanitary conditions in Rafah, but Israeli officials disagree with that assessment.
Biden aides stress to their Israeli counterparts that Palestinians cannot simply be moved to barren or bombed parts of Gaza, but that Israel must provide basic infrastructure, including shelter, food, water, medicine and other necessities, so that those evacuated can have Help.
Experts from across the US government are advising their Israeli counterparts in great detail on how to develop and implement such a humanitarian plan, down to the number of tents and the amount of water needed for specific areas, according to several people familiar with the matter.
Aid groups said that safely evacuating people from Rafah was almost impossible, given the conditions in the rest of Gaza.
The unusually detailed and sensitive talks highlight the enormous risks facing both Israel and the United States as Netanyahu prepares to invade Rafah, the last city in Gaza not destroyed by Israeli attacks.
Israel has become increasingly isolated during the 7-month-old Gaza war, which has killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Biden also received massive criticism at home and abroad for his support for the war.
Israeli leaders stress that they must go to Rafah to finish the mission of eliminating the faction movement, which attacked Israel on October 7 and killed about 1,200 people.
But destroying the city’s extensive tunnel network, where many of the faction movement’s leaders and fighters are based, would expose tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians to danger.
This has prompted US officials to urge a broad and overly complex evacuation plan as the best option, even as they urgently push for a ceasefire between Israel and the faction movement.
A senior US administration official said: “We have serious concerns about the way Israel has pursued this campaign, and it could all culminate in Rafah.”
American officials are now working closely with Egypt to find and cut tunnels that cross the border between Egypt and Gaza in the Rafah area, which the faction movement has used to militarily renovate, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
The American offers came during the negotiations that took place during the past seven weeks between senior American and Israeli officials, regarding the size and scope of the operation in Rafah.
It is not yet clear whether Israel will respond to repeated American warnings not to launch a large-scale ground operation, especially since Biden and Netanyahu got their biggest public break this week after months of escalating tensions and open conflict.
In recent days, Israel seized a border crossing near Rafah and ordered more than 100,000 people to evacuate the city, frustrating US officials because those ordered to leave were not given a safe, livable destination.
Some American officials view these actions as an attempt by Israel to exert pressure in its ongoing negotiations with the faction movement regarding an extended ceasefire in exchange for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages.
Negotiators left Cairo this week, dwindling hopes for a deal, but Biden aides insist they are still working on an agreement, which they see as the most promising way to end the war.
The Biden administration conducted an internal assessment that the factional movement and its leader, Yahya Sinwar, would welcome a large and long battle in Rafah that would be devastating and deadly, according to a senior administration official, because it would increase Israel’s isolation.
US officials say that Israel has not launched a large-scale ground operation in Rafah at this stage, despite a series of raids it has launched in recent days.
In private discussions, Israel said it was taking the US warnings seriously, and had given assurances as of Friday that its soldiers would not advance into the city before evacuating some 800,000 Palestinians, according to a senior US administration official familiar with the discussions.
Biden said this week that he would block the transfer of offensive weapons to Israel if the country goes ahead with its resolution targeting population centers, a notable shift for the US president, who has long imposed consequences on Israel over its behavior in Gaza, as tensions and pressure from fellow Democrats mount. Netanyahu responded defiantly that Israel would “stand alone” if necessary.
Source: “Washington Post”
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2024-05-12 14:48:42