Biden’s wished-for targeted operation in Rafah might not be out of the question
The IDF can’t lean on special forces to take out Hamas’s remaining battalions, but the Rafah fight won’t look anything like the conquest of Gaza City
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Speaking by phone for the first time in a month on Monday night, US President Joe Biden made it clear to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US does not want to see a massive IDF ground incursion into Rafah, even if civilians are moved to a safer location in the Gaza Strip.
For months, the White House had been saying publicly it would only support an Israeli conquest of the southern Gaza city — the last one in Hamas hands — if Jerusalem made sure to do so in a way that does not endanger the 1.5 million civilians there, many of whom Israel had sent south in the early stages of the campaign.
Netanyahu, along with his war leadership, has insisted that there is no way to defeat Hamas without taking Rafah. The four remaining Hamas battalions, out of an initial 24, are in the city, and — more importantly — it sits on the border with Egypt. Israel suspects the terrorist organization tunneled under the Gaza border to smuggle in massive shipments of guns, explosives, and rockets over the last decade and a half.
US support is a pillar of Israel’s ability to prosecute the long war on Hamas, a conflict that will go on for months at the very least.
Disregarding Biden’s warnings on Rafah would seriously undermine that support.
Given the circumstances, it would not be wise to ignore Biden, whose response could include slowed ammunition shipments, letting UN Security Council resolutions pass without a US veto, or even the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, according to various reports and veiled hints from the administration.
Is Israel in a no-win situation five months after the worst day in its history, forced to choose between leaving Hamas intact to meet demands that are disconnected from military reality, and endangering the backing of its key ally? Or is there a realistic way to dismantle Hamas in Rafah without a “major ground operation,” as US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan described it?
Pistols and cap guns
When considering what an operation could look like, it is important first to be clear about the military goals, insisted Assaf Orion, a retired IDF brigadier general and senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
“We are trying to take apart Hamas battalions,” said Orion, “to ensure that Hamas can’t rearm, and to destroy the tunnels.”
The four battalions in Rafah aren’t the best that Hamas had, but plenty of fighters from further north have fled to the city to stiffen the ranks of the formations there, Orion said.
Given those aims, a targeted operation in Rafah is not realistic, argued Col. (res.) Gabi Siboni, a military expert at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.
“There is no patent out there for a way to do this gently,” he told The Times of Israel. “This is nonsense from people who don’t understand anything about it.”
Because Hamas has situated its military infrastructure under civilian homes and facilities, Siboni said, there is no way to conquer Rafah without causing significant destruction.
Moreover, in order to protect its forces in a dangerous environment, Israel will have to use significant firepower.
“If we want to kill our soldiers, then we should send them in with pistols and cap guns,” Siboni continued wryly.
Intelligence-based operation
But Israel can operate in far more targeted and less aggressive fashion than Biden fears.
Impressions of the way the IDF is fighting the ongoing war are influenced heavily by the images that came out of Gaza City in the first phase of the ground incursion.
The conquest of that city was indeed aggressive. Four full divisions smashed through Hamas positions in the city, leaving entire neighborhoods uninhabitable.
However, there is no reason to think that a Rafah operation would look anything like Gaza City.
In October, the IDF had inadequate tactical intelligence. It did not think reconquering Gaza was an option, so intelligence gathering over the years focused on cross-border tunnels and threats to the Israeli side of the border.
The difficulty finding Hamas leaders, hostages, and defensive tunnels in the early going is testament to the intelligence gaps.
But that reality has changed. Five months of seizing computers, documents, and especially Hamas fighters has transformed the IDF’s understanding of the battlefield, according to officials.
Israel’s ability to strike senior leaders like Marwan Issa, to successfully rescue two hostages last month, and to reduce the casualty rate is the result of improved intelligence in Gaza as the war progresses.
The Khan Younis operation, carried out by one enlarged division, was far more targeted than the one in Gaza City. Commando and paratrooper formations, joined by tank and infantry brigades assigned to the division for the operation, moved rapidly into the heart of the city almost overnight.
For months, smaller units have been carrying out targeted raids into Khan Younis neighborhoods. These operations cause significant damage, but they do not feature the aggressive use of artillery and airstrikes that marked the fighting in November.
In addition, the IDF has been learning lessons throughout the fighting. Coordination between ground forces and air assets is tighter, rules of engagement are clearer, and all the large formations still fighting are regular army units, sharper and more disciplined than the reserve brigades fighting in the first months of the war.
An operation in Rafah, which Netanyahu promised once again on Wednesday would be coming though not right away, would be far more directed by specific intelligence than in Gaza City — during which the IDF was less sure of what exactly it was looking for — or even Khan Younis.
That doesn’t mean the IDF can rely on boutique special forces raids in Rafah, though Biden would be pleased to see that.
Israeli forces aren’t trying to take out individual terrorists in Rafah. It will be another unit-on-unit fight, in which larger attacking formations seek to smash apart defending units. Individual terrorists will survive, and will be the focus of later clearing operations.
Moreover, to fight effectively and securely in dense urban environments, militaries need more than just special forces. They need tanks for firepower, armored vehicles to move maneuvering infantry, bulldozers to deal with mines and roadblocks, and artillery and fighter jets to offer close air support and knock out enemy positions.
And a smaller force doesn’t necessarily mean less firepower, in any event.
The IDF sent commandoes into Rafah in February to rescue two hostages. The infiltration and rescue itself was quiet and precise — but the extraction was something else entirely.
Because of the vulnerability of the force, once the city woke up and opened fire on the rescuers, Israel had to use massive firepower to get the soldiers and hostages out. Dozens of Palestinians were killed during the exfiltration.
A larger force is able to secure a neighborhood, then work with more care and precision to go after targets that intelligence points them to.
If Israel is able to show it is fighting in a more targeted manner than it did in Khan Younis, and certainly in Gaza City, that might be enough to allay Biden’s concerns about the operation itself while still taking apart Hamas’s battalions in Rafah.
The equally thorny issues of humanitarian aid and the evacuation of civilians from Rafah will also have to be solved. Though they are significant challenges, coordinating with the US and throwing real effort to address both concerns could be enough to allay the worst of Biden’s concerns and maintain enough support to finish the military campaign against Hamas.
