The Israeli army is ready for the announced raid in Rafah. The troops have completed preparations for the offensive, while the date and time of the operation will have to be decided by the war cabinet. He makes it known Haaretz. According to the testimony of a journalist fromAssociated Press, the IDF is said to have massed dozens of tanks and armored vehicles along the border with the Gaza Strip, in what appear to be preparations for the invasion of the city on the border with Egypt, which Israel considers the last stronghold of Hamas and where approximately 1.4 million Palestinian civilians have taken refuge. With a tactical repositioning, the IDF also recalled the Nahal Brigade from the Strip – the last remaining in the South after the withdrawal of ground troops on 7 April, rebuilding the Times of Israel – to prepare for the upcoming operation with the rest of the 162 Division which, according to the army, is already approaching Rafah from the center of Gaza. For Egypt, the Israeli military presence in the border city “would constitute a violation of the peace treaty and Cairo’s response would be decisive”, an informed source told the Egyptian website Al Ahram.
The location of Cairo
Egypt has, in fact, reaffirmed its categorical rejection of any attempted Israeli invasion of the Palestinian city of Rafah. The source said that any military presence of the Israeli occupation army in the border area between Egypt and Israel, known as Area D (which corresponds to the Palestinian Rafah), would constitute a violation of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty signed in 1979. The Egyptian president, Abdel-Fattah al Sisi, also reiterated his country’s opposition to the forced displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip: «Egypt has adopted a clear position since the beginning of the war, rejecting the forced migration of Palestinians from their lands towards Sinai or any other place in order to preserve the Palestinian cause and ensure the safeguarding of Egyptian national security,” Sisi said in a televised message broadcast by international media.
The hostage negotiation
While everything seems to be ready for the imminent offensive, the United States on the one hand has reiterated its opposition, trying to convince Israel that there are “other ways of hitting Hamas”; on the other hand they brought together a coalition of 18 countries to demand “the immediate release of all hostages in Gaza as a precondition for reaching a ceasefire”. According to Israeli TV Channel 12 news, Israeli officials considered today, Thursday, April 25, during the war cabinet a more limited proposal for Hamas to release the hostages, with the intention of avoiding the terrorist group’s demand that any agreement includes an end to the war. The local broadcaster speaks, in fact, of a “new outline of agreement” which provides for the release of 20 hostages (no longer 40): women, soldiers, elderly people and people in serious conditions. Israel, in this case, would allow the Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, but would not declare an end to the war. The proposal is expected to be sent to the mediators shortly.
