Loading player
The suspension of fighting in the Rafah area during daytime announced on Sunday by the Israeli army and seriously contested by the government seems to be holding: on Monday there were no military operations along the 11 kilometer road that connects the Kerem Shalom gate to the northern part of the Rafah city. There were big doubts about the solidity of the so-called “tactical pause” decided by the army, which should favor the passage of humanitarian aid: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had strongly criticized the decision and said he was against it, while far-right exponents of government, like Itamar Ben-Gvir, had defined it as “madness”.
The suspension of operations between 8am and 7pm is actually very limited, it only concerns a rather short stretch of a single road, but it was requested by international humanitarian organizations and the United Nations. For over a month the Israeli army began military operations in Rafah, in the area of the southernmost city of the Gaza Strip, where 1.4 million people were refugees at the time. The Rafah crossing with Egypt, where most of the aid trucks passed, was closed, and over a million displaced people who had found refuge in the area dispersed northwards.
The map of the Gaza Strip, with the border crossings and the main communication routes: to travel along the ones in red, the UN must also make agreements with the Israeli army (UN)
This has made the operations of humanitarian organizations involved in distributing food, water and basic necessities to a starving population in very complex survival conditions even more complex: in particular the fighting along the road towards the Kerem Shalom gate, the only one still open in the southern area, greatly limited the passage of trucks. To get through it was necessary to wait for a moment of pause in operations and to agree on every movement with the Israeli army, with the result that the number of vehicles and aid was significantly reduced.
The ongoing pause facilitates at least the first part of these operations, while the distribution of aid in other areas of the Strip remains complex, due to the terrible conditions of the roads and the ongoing military operations.
It is unclear whether and how long the “tactical pause” will last, but the harsh criticism coming from Netanyahu’s government had no immediate effect. On Sunday, during a government meeting, Netanyahu reportedly commented on the announcement of the suspension of operations by saying that “we have a country with an army, not an army with a country”, meaning that decisions on war strategies are up to him and not to the army, and that «in order to achieve the elimination of Hamas, I have made decisions that are not always accepted by army officials».
– Read also: There is almost no one left in Rafah
