After Sinwar killing, Netanyahu sees vindication in his Rafah approach
PM and his circle argue that the elimination of the Hamas leader, in the city world leaders said Israel must not invade, shows he knows what he’s doing despite opposition criticism
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
In mid-March, US officials told the Politico news site that US President Joe Biden would consider limiting future military aid to Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went ahead with an offensive against Hamas in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah.
Days before, Biden said in an interview that such an IDF move into the city would be a “red line,” while adding that he was “never going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical.”
Vice President Kamala Harris famously said at the time that she had “studied the maps” and that a Rafah operation was not viable, while warning of potential consequences.
The US wasn’t the only country to use unusually harsh language in warning against the step. An Israeli offensive in Rafah “could only lead to an unprecedented humanitarian disaster and would be a turning point in this conflict,” said French President Emmanuel Macron. The UK, Jordan and Egypt also issued stark injunctions.
In fact, world leaders were projecting outright panic over the planned campaign, which Israel insisted was necessary in order to complete the dismantlement of Hamas. They warned of catastrophic consequences for the civilian population in the city, which had become a refuge for much of the Strip’s population amid the war; they said a proper evacuation of the city would require months and was unfeasible; they predicted a cataclysmic death toll that would dwarf all that had come before.
The intense global pressure led to months of delay, but the Rafah offensive eventually went ahead in May regardless, with Israel successfully evacuating the civilian population ahead of its push into the city — in a matter of days — and none of the predictions of disaster coming to pass. Over the course of four months, the military systematically dismantled Hamas’s Rafah Brigade, with civilian deaths actually far lower than during the opening campaigns of the war in Gaza’s north.
As the promised doom failed to materialize, so did the threats of repercussions for Israel. The international community was largely muted as the IDF carried out its work, neighborhood by neighborhood. Egypt, which had cautioned an operation in Rafah could threaten peace with Israel itself, suspended aid convoys into Gaza through the Rafah Crossing in anger as it began, but kept cooperation on hostages, security and other core elements of the bilateral relationship intact.
The efforts in Rafah reached their climax this week with IDF troops killing Israel’s number one target in Gaza, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, architect of the October 7, 2023, invasion and slaughter in southern Israel. And now, just months after their admonishments and threats, Israel’s allies are celebrating the terror chief’s demise, while enthusiastically promoting the opportunity his elimination from the picture represents.
In the White House statement after Sinwar’s death, Biden said, “There is now the opportunity for a ‘day after’ in Gaza without Hamas in power, and for a political settlement that provides a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
“Yahya Sinwar was an insurmountable obstacle to achieving all of those goals,” Biden added. “That obstacle no longer exists.”
Even Macron, who has recently emerged as a leading critic of Israel’s handling of the war, indirectly blessed the operation: “We should seize this opportunity to free hostages and to end the war.”
Netanyahu and his inner circle are not trying very hard to hide their feelings of vindication.
“It is now clear to everyone, in Israel and in the world, why we insisted on not ending the war,” the prime minister said in a Hebrew-language statement Thursday night, formally announcing that Sinwar had been eliminated. “Why we insisted, in the face of all the pressures, to enter Rafah, the fortified stronghold of Hamas where Sinwar and many of the murderers hid.”
Top Netanyahu adviser Ophir Falk was more explicit, saying on X that the prime minister “overcame the international and domestic pressure and pushed the Rafah operation over the line.”
Speaking to The Times of Israel on Friday, an Israeli official took aim at Hebrew-language columnists who had in the past day accused Netanyahu of having wilted under US pressure and delayed the Rafah operation for months.
“The one who pushed for a Rafah operation was the prime minister,” argued the official, while asserting that it was other members of the now-defunct war cabinet who spoke against it, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and then-minister Benny Gantz.
“Biden told him three times over the phone not to go into Rafah,” said the official. “Not only did Netanyahu say we would go into Philadelphi [the Gaza-Egypt border corridor] and Rafah, but that we would fight with our fingernails.”
Gallant’s office declined to comment on the accusations. Publicly, at least, Gallant pushed for a Rafah operation while Israel waited. “We are completing the mission in Khan Younis and we will also reach Rafah and eliminate everyone there who is a terrorist who is trying to harm us,” Gallant said in February.
“The reason why we didn’t do [Rafah] is because Netanyahu was wary of immense US pressure,” said a second Israeli official, less supportive of the prime minister, when responding to allegations that Gantz was wary of the campaign.
“If it was up to Benny, we would have finished Rafah and Gaza earlier to move focus to the northern border faster,” the official continued. “But finishing faster in Gaza doesn’t suit Netanyahu.”
The fact that Israeli leaders are squabbling over credit for the Rafah operation and its culmination in the elimination of Sinwar, while assigning blame to rivals for the delay, underscores just how successful it has been.
Throughout the operation, the IDF defeated four Hamas battalions and assumed control over the key Philadelphi Corridor, while cutting off the smuggling routes Hamas had previously used to bring mass amounts of weaponry from Egypt into Gaza — both above and below ground. The dismantling of Hamas’s fighting forces in Rafah has solidified the sense that, at least on the basic military level, the war is essentially won.
There is no question that Netanyahu has been on a winning streak of late, ever since he decided to turn up the pressure on Hezbollah in September, with Israel swiftly dealing massive damage to the group in a matter of weeks, eliminating most of its leadership while crippling its capability to wage war.
The prime minister still has to show he has answers to stubborn questions, however. Repeated tactical successes in Gaza have not led to freedom for the remaining 101 hostages held there, and Hamas is still positioned to retake the Strip should the IDF leave, if no alternative governing force is allowed to inherit it. Meanwhile, Hezbollah is showing some signs of recovering in the north, as the IDF operation there keeps expanding.
But for now, at least, with a more stable coalition and a shrinking list of top terror targets to eliminate, Netanyahu seems to feel thoroughly justified in his approach to the war. Sinwar’s killing appears to be potent further evidence that Netanyahu and the IDF can highlight to justify the decision to go into Rafah in the face of immense opposition, and the prime minister is sure to continue to use it to argue that — whatever his many critics at home and abroad may say — he does in fact know what he’s doing.
