Netanyahu Sets Date for Rafah Offensive: ‘It Will Happen’

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that a date has been set for an Israeli military offensive in Rafah, the Hamas terror group’s last stronghold in Gaza.

“This victory [over Hamas] requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen — there is a date,” Netanyahu said in Jerusalem without revealing further details.

The United States has been pressuring Israel not to move forward with a full-scale military operation in the southern Gazan city, where more than a million Gazans are sheltering, expressing concern about the potential for high civilian casualties.

However, Netanyahu has reiterated that “we are determined to do this” regarding a Rafah offensive. Experts recently told The Algemeiner that Israel must operate in Rafah if it wishes to achieve its war objective of eliminating the threat posed by Hamas, which rules Gaza.

US and Israeli officials have been discussing potential options for targeting Hamas in Rafah, where Israel says the Palestinian terrorist group still has four battalions. According to reports, no action is planned until such discussion are concluded, and a potential operation is tied to the resolution of a hostage agreement.

Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks regarding a ceasefire in Gaza that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators, as well as America’s CIA Director William Burns.

“Today I received a detailed report on the talks in Cairo. We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.

Hamas kidnapped 253 hostages and murdered more than 1,200 people during its Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, launching the current war. Israel responded with a military offensive aimed at freeing all the hostages and incapacitating Hamas to the point that it can longer pose a threat to the Israeli people from Gaza, the Palestinian enclave that borders Israel.

Over the past few months, Hamas has rejected all ceasefire offers, while Israel agreed to a deal that would end fighting for six weeks and release 700 Palestinian terrorists from jail, in exchange for 40 hostages seized during Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.

Israel has said any truce must include the release of all remaining hostages and be temporary, warning that a long-term truce would allow Hamas to regroup and strengthen its position to continue attacking the Jewish state. Hamas leaders have pledged to carry out massacres against Israel like the one on Oct. 7 “again and again.”

Meanwhile, Hamas has demanded that any truce must include a permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

“There is no change in the position of the occupation [Israel] and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” an anonymous Hamas official told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”

Netanyahu’s latest comments about Rafah came amid rising tensions between Israel and its close ally the US over Gaza.

In a call with Netanyahu last week, US President Joe Biden issued his toughest public rebuke of Israel since its war against Hamas began in the fall, warning that US policy moving forward will be determined by whether Israel takes certain actions to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Other Biden administration similarly threatened to fundamentally change US policy toward Israel and Gaza.

US officials have responded positively to subsequent steps by Israel to increase what was already significant amounts of aid entering Gaza. However, Washington said more aid was needed.

Beyond Netanyahu, other Israeli officials have recently made clear that some kind of operation in Rafah will happen and is essential to achieving the Jewish state’s war aims.

“Hamas has ceased to function as a military organization in most parts of the Gaza Strip,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told an Israeli parliamentary committee last week.

“Their commanders are hiding in tunnels, they have lost command and control capabilities, [and] the battalion frameworks in most parts of the strip have ceased to function,” Gallant added in comments briefing members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on the war in Gaza. “The Hamas brigade in Rafah, however, is still standing, with its four battalions. We will address this soon.”

According to Gallant, continuing to apply military pressure on Hamas is the best way to ensure the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza amid ongoing negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar, and the US to reach a ceasefire agreement.

“Military pressure was and remains the main and most significant element in ensuring the return of the hostages,” he told Israeli lawmakers. “The advanced stage we have reached in dismantling Hamas and the information that we have gained from terrorists empower us at the negotiation table and enable us to make difficult decisions. I am committed to returning all the hostages to their homes.”