TEL AVIV – Despite all the international appeals to avoid a new massacre, the Israeli armed forces have just announced that everything is ready to start the ground invasion in what it considers the last stronghold of Hamas. There are hands that dig the earth, taking bodies out of mass graves, and other hands that raise long rows of white tents lined up on the sandy earth. It is in Khan Yunis that the horror of what has just happened coexists with the terror of what is about to happen: in the compound of the Nasser hospital, between desperation and tears, a massacre that the UN defines as “horrible” re-emerges from the graves , the US State Department is “worrying” and on which the EU is calling for “independent investigations” due to “the suspicion” that “human rights violations have been committed”; but a few kilometers from there, in the meantime, the area is being prepared to welcome the displaced people who will be forced to leave Rafah during the Israeli attack.
“Everything is ready, all that is missing is the government’s approval,” said a senior official of the armed forces, reiterating what had been evident for days: Israel does not listen to international warnings and proceeds along the line it deems indispensable, that is, to defeat crazy to Hamas in its last stronghold. This morning the head of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, and the Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi flew to Egypt – says Axios – to meet their counterparts to discuss the imminent offensive. A move that Egypt does not approve, at least officially, and would have reminded us of the humanitarian catastrophe that is risked by entering with the army into a city where more than a million civilians displaced from the rest of the Strip live following the instructions given by the forces themselves. Israeli armies, which demolished and evacuated the North.
The refugee camps being set up are furthermore evidence that preparations are being made to welcome the displaced people from the Rafah evacuations. Satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC show the birth of a new tent complex under construction right near Khan Younis. And the comparative images from April 16 and 21 show that the work is progressing quickly. Works that officially have no paternity: Israel has denied being the builder of those tent cities, and according to the newspaper Haaretz and other anonymous sources say Egypt was behind the construction of the camp.
But it must not be a coincidence that just as the white spots of new tent cities under construction were appearing from the satellite images, on Sunday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wished him well for the Jewish Passover which was about to begin by announcing “further painful blows” coming against Hamas, guilty of having blown up the negotiating table on the release of the hostages in exchange for the ceasefire.
And the acceleration and nervousness of Hamas itself, which in an interview with the Qatari newspaper, does not seem to be a coincidence either Al Arabi Al Jadid denied the Israeli reconstruction according to which the militiamen had offered only 20 hostages in the first phase of the ceasefire, saying that in reality they had offered double that number, and maintaining that the number of hostages still alive is decidedly higher and that they are kept in a place inaccessible to Israel. “The government lies to the families of the hostages and manipulates them,” the senior officer told the Qatari newspaper.
But Hamas reserved the real twist for the afternoon when it released for the first time in months the video of one of the hostages, Hersh Goldberg-Polin: a 24-year-old boy who was at the rave on October 7 when the militiamen arrested him. they seriously injured and kidnapped him. In the video he appears with an amputated arm. In this case the attempt to manipulate public opinion using the hostages and their families is more than evident. But it is clear that Hamas’ move will have to be quickly processed by the government: it seems a prompt response to the Israeli threat to go ahead with the attack on Rafah against all international wishes, in which Israel risks provoking an even more serious humanitarian catastrophe than which it has already done by killing more than 34,000 people in less than 7 months, including countless children and women.
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The United States, Israel’s main ally, has repeatedly expressed itself against a military operation that does not protect civilians, and the same was reiterated at the G7 ministerial in Capri. Netanyahu said that he will evacuate civilians from Rafah without specifying the details of a very risky operation, just as he did not explain how he intends to filter the militiamen from the civilians. The Wall Street Journal he wrote, citing Egyptian sources, that Israeli plans include the evacuation of civilians in coordination with the United States, Egypt and other Arab countries in the first few weeks. The destination would be Khan Younis, where the tent cities are being built and where Israel claims it will set up medical facilities and provide food.
The Israeli security forces are convinced that the bulk of the Hamas army is still operational and well barricaded in Rafah, where they also believe the hostages are located. The battle would last many weeks, at least six according to Egyptian officials. But the challenge of fighting it without a new unbearable massacre truly seems like a utopia. The US State Department, President Joe Biden and other allied leaders have unequivocally warned Israel not to proceed down a minefield: “We do not think there is an effective way to evacuate 1.4 million Palestinians. There is no way to conduct an operation in Rafah that does not lead to excessive civilian harm and severely impede humanitarian assistance,” the State Department said. The white tents on the sand do not seem compatible with the need to guarantee the safety of civilians and with the “we are ready” proclaimed by the Israeli armed forces.
