PM: IDF operation in Rafah was what eventually brought Hamas to negotiate ‘the deal I brought’

Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Addressing the Knesset, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argues that Biden administration officials said that Hamas was the only obstacle to a hostage deal — and that Israel’s military campaign in the southern Gaza city of Rafah was what eventually brought the terror group to the table and to accept “the deal I brought.”

The IDF entered Rafah and the Philadelphi Corridor on the Egypt-Gaza border in May, the same month former US president Joe Biden announced a hostage-ceasefire deal very similar to the one that came into effect in January.

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