The Israeli army said on Friday it had advanced into central Rafah and deeper into southern Gaza city, despite international protests and pressure from its allies to scale back its offensive.
The Israeli army said in a statement that Israeli special forces backed by tanks and artillery were operating in central Rafah, without specifying the exact location. The Israeli army said on Wednesday it had established “operational control” over an eight-mile stretch of the border with Egypt known as the Philadelphia Corridor, outside Rafah.
Commercially available satellite imagery taken by Planet Labs on Thursday also showed Israeli forces setting up positions in parts of central Rafah, with military vehicles and tanks visible as far west as the outskirts of the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood in Rafah.
Despite nearly eight months of fighting, Israel has yet to achieve its goals of returning some 125 hostages held in Gaza and defeating Hamas. Israeli officials say cutting off Hamas' cross-border smuggling network and clearing out militants in Rafah would be key steps toward achieving those goals.
Another recent focus for the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip has been the northern town of Jabalia, where the army said it carried out more than 200 airstrikes in weeks of fierce fighting with Hamas fighters. Israeli forces withdrew on Friday, leaving widespread devastation behind, according to the army and Palestinian residents. The army said it was still conducting some combat operations in the central Gaza Strip.
Military analysts have expressed skepticism that the Rafah attack will be the decisive blow to Hamas that Israel desperately needs. But it has deepened suffering for ordinary Palestinians who still face widespread hunger in the area. And the amount of international aid reaching southern Gaza has fallen since the offensive began, although the arrival of commercial supplies has increased slightly.
Israel's national security adviser, Tsahi Hanegbi, said on Wednesday that Israel's military operation in Gaza will likely continue until the end of the year. Hanegbi, a senior aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a radio interview that fighting would continue for several more months to “consolidate gains” against Hamas.
More than a million Palestinians — about half of Rafah's population — have fled Israeli attacks over the past few weeks, according to the U.N., many of them for the second or third time during the conflict. Many took refuge in Rafah after Israel ordered a mass withdrawal from northern Gaza in late October, causing the city's population to swell to 1.4 million.
Israel went ahead with the attack in Rafah despite concerns from close allies such as the United States that a large-scale military attack would put civilians at grave risk.
Some of those fears appeared to be realized on Sunday when an Israeli attack and subsequent gunfire killed at least 45 people, according to Gaza health officials. The Israeli military said the bombing targeted two Hamas commanders but unintentionally sparked fires in nearby areas where civilians had taken refuge.
Retired Israeli Brigadier General Shlomo Blom said on Friday that the offensive in Rafah was likely to continue for weeks as Israeli forces destroyed tunnels in planned explosions and battled remaining militants in parts of the city to “cleanse” the area.
Israeli forces are likely to remain in the border area near Egypt for the time being to prevent Hamas from rearming, said Gen. Blom, who heads the army's strategic plans department. He said Israeli authorities have not yet moved on to the only viable option – to hand over security responsibility to a new government.
Israeli officials have expressed frustration with Netanyahu's lack of a clear strategy for withdrawing from the war. Over the past few months, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to areas they seized early in the war, such as Jabariyeh, to quell a resurgence of Hamas insurgency.
Unless Israel takes a final diplomatic step towards the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military will remain bogged down in constant fighting with Palestinian militants there, General Blom said.
“All kinds of operations will be launched, they will all have military logic but they will not be part of a clear strategy,” Blom said, adding that eliminating the militant threat in Gaza “could take years” under Israeli military rule.
Last week, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to curb its ongoing military attacks in Rafah, warning of the risk of serious harm to civilians, but some judges wrote that Israel may still carry out military operations in Rafah. The Israeli military has continued its operations despite the pressure, describing its operations in Rafah as limited and targeted.
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Satellite imagery from May 22 showed that much of eastern Rafah, particularly around the border crossing with Egypt, has been devastated since the offensive began in early May. Israel began its offensive into the area on May 7, seizing the Rafah crossing in an overnight operation.
The Rafah crossing has served as a vital route for delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza amid widespread poverty and hunger, and has also served as the main gateway for sick and injured Gazans fleeing the fighting to access emergency medical care.
Israeli officials say the entrance is part of a Hamas smuggling operation into the exclave, which has been under a strict Israeli and Egyptian blockade since Palestinian militants seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007.
The checkpoint has been closed since it was occupied by Israeli forces, and Israeli, Egyptian and Palestinian officials have been unable to reach an agreement on how to reopen it.
Under U.S. pressure, Egypt this week began diverting some aid trucks to another Israeli-controlled crossing, the Kerem Shalom crossing, in an attempt to mitigate a sharp drop in aid entering the Gaza Strip.