PM pressed on why he framed 2024 Rafah op as last step needed to defeat Hamas

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is asked about comments he made in March 2024 in which he argued that “it won’t be possible to complete the victory without the IDF entering Rafah and eliminating the remaining Hamas battalions” and about an assertion he made in a CBS interview around the same time that “once we begin the Rafah operation, the intense phase of the fighting is weeks away from completion.”

Netanyahu is asked what went wrong, given that he is now once again framing another major military operation as part of the last step Israel must complete in order to finish off Hamas.

“What happened after the conquering of Rafah was that we achieved victories,” Netanyahu responds, highlighting the developments in Lebanon, Syria and Iran that took place in the months that followed Israel’s Rafah operation.

He doesn’t specify how the Rafah operation led to the developments in other arenas and why he framed the Rafah takeover as the final operation needed to defeat Hamas when Israel had not yet fully entered Gaza City or the refugee camps in central Gaza.

He later acknowledges that even after the Gaza City takeover, Israel will have to stage another operation to clear the central Gaza camps. However, he declines to elaborate in order, he says, to avoid tipping off Hamas.