More “Yes, but”, this time with a helping of putting Israeli security in Egyptian hands.
[IsraelTimes] US officials tell ToI next week’s meeting with visiting Israeli delegation will be used to advance viable options other than massive ground offensive in packed south Gaza cityThe US will present alternative plans for how Israel can continue pursuing Hamas
...a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...without launching a major ground operation in Rafah during an upcoming meeting with a visiting Israeli delegation in Washington, two senior US officials told The Times of Israel on Tuesday.
"This isn’t just us saying, ’No you can’t do it.’ We’re saying that we’re willing to work with you on viable alternatives that still help you achieve your objectives," one of the senior US officials said, speaking to The Times of Israel on condition of anonymity.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan touched on this idea on Monday when he announced that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had accepted a request from US President Joe
The Big GuyBiden
...46th president of the U.S. Joe's wife and daughter weren't killed by a drunk driver. He didn't graduate with three or even two degrees, wasn't in the top half of his law class, and his daddy didn't come home from a hard day's work in the mines and play football with the guys. The NAACP hasn't endorsed him every time he's run....
during their phone call earlier that day to send an inter-agency team to Washington "to hear US concerns about Israel’s current Rafah planning and to lay out an alternative approach that would target key Hamas elements in Rafah and secure the Egypt-Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
border, without a major ground invasion."
Elaborating on the alternative approach the Biden administration has in mind, a second senior US official said Washington envisions Israel focusing instead on preventing the smuggling of weapons from Egypt into Gaza through the Philadelphi Corridor.
The official avoided blaming the Egyptian government for the smuggling that was partially responsible for Hamas’s re-armament amid successive rounds of conflict with Israel over the past 15 years. However,
today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday...
they said reaching a new arrangement with Cairo and building the necessary infrastructure to cut off the smuggling route would be more critical to the dismantlement of Hamas than a major ground offensive in Rafah.
"If Israel smashes into Rafah with all the civilian casualties that doing so would entail, cooperation from Egypt on locking down the [Philadelphi] Corridor will be much more difficult," the second bigwig said.
The first official clarified that US opposition to a major Rafah ground invasion doesn’t mean it opposes more targeted operations against Hamas’s leadership in Rafah or elsewhere, and said that the alternative plans the Biden administration intends to present to the visiting Israeli delegation will focus on this goal as well.
The US also envisions Israel using the coming period to implement a massive humanitarian surge, the US official said, speaking two days after the publication of a UN-backed report warning that famine is imminent in northern Gaza.
The senior US official said this will require Israel to open additional ground routes within Gaza to deliver aid to the north, where some 300,000 Paleostinians have been practically cut off from aid after bucking IDF directives to evacuate at the beginning of the war. Israel and Hamas are almost six months into a war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 massacre, when thousands of bully boyz killed some 1,200 people and took 253 hostages during a murderous rampage across southern Israel.
Any sort of operation in Rafah — let alone the massive invasion that Washington opposes — will require a far more stable humanitarian situation in Gaza, the US official explained.
They noted that the southern Gaza city has become a humanitarian hub in recent months and that new storage and distribution mechanisms will have to be established in other areas.
The number of aid trucks coming into Gaza from the yet-to-be-established maritime corridor from Cyprus along with other routes into the Strip will need to be significantly scaled up, to figures not seen since before the war when 500 trucks entered each day, the bigwig said. "That’s not happening any time soon, especially not when we’re in the middle of an imminent famine."
The US, only last week, dispatched a ship with supplies for the temporary pier it plans to build off the Gaza City coast in a project that could take up to two months.
The alternative plans the US wants to discuss with the visiting Israeli delegation will also include efforts to begin the reconstruction of Gaza and to build up a viable alternative to Hamas, the first senior US official said.
Both of these aspects are points of contention, given that the outline of a post-war Gaza plan Netanyahu presented to his cabinet last month does not envision Israel allowing reconstruction to begin until the enclave has been de-militarized and "de-radicalized." Netanyahu has also sought to empower local clan leaders with no ties to the Paleostinian Authority to replace Hamas in governing Gaza, though the idea has received a chilly reception from the US and international community, which wants a reformed PA to return to the Strip.
Both US officials clarified that the Biden administration is not ignoring the four remaining Hamas battalions in Rafah but argued that their strength and importance to the mission of defeating Hamas was being overblown by Netanyahu.
"We don’t want Hamas to have a safe haven there, but the current situation is not feasible," the first US official said.
The officials credited Israel for taking steps over the past couple of weeks to alleviate the humanitarian crisis, but one of them said that the situation could deteriorate again if Jerusalem does not begin implementing a "non-scorched earth strategy for pursuing Hamas."
Earlier Tuesday, Netanyahu’s office announced that the premier has tapped two of his most trusted aides, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, to lead the Israeli delegation to Washington. A representative from COGAT, the IDF unit responsible for coordinating aid in the Gaza Strip, will also be making the trip.
"The prime minister stressed that he is determined to operate in Rafah in order to eliminate for good the remaining Hamas battalions while offering humanitarian solutions to the civilian population," the statement said.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said the meeting will likely take place early next week.
Separately, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will host Defense Minister Yoav Gallant next week for a bilateral meeting at the US Defense Department, an American defense official said.
Also on Tuesday, Netanyahu told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the IDF will enter Rafah and that he told Biden as much in their call on Monday.
"We have a disagreement with the Americans about the need to enter Rafah," Netanyahu said, according to a statement from his office. "Not about the need to eliminate Hamas — the need to enter Rafah. We do not see a way to eliminate Hamas militarily without destroying these remaining battalions. We are determined to do it. "
Biden effectively ruled out any potential support for a major Israeli ground offensive in Rafah during his call with Netanyahu, Jake Sullivan revealed on Monday, hardening his position after the administration had indicated for months it could support an operation there under certain conditions.