Israel, Egypt Held Secret Meeting to Invade Rafah

(Photo by MAHMUD HAMS/AFP via Getty Images)

On Wednesday, three senior Israeli officials told Axios that a meeting was held between their respective governments and Egypt regarding plans for an Israeli Defense Force invasion into Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, where more than 1 million Palestinians are now forced to reside.

“Everyone is waiting for Netanyahu’s directive to start evacuating the civilian population from Rafah. It’s parked at his desk. He needs to resolve the matter with both the Americans and the Egyptians,” one senior Israeli official told the publication.

In March, President Joe Biden warned that an invasion of Rafah would be a “mistake.” However, last week, the White House noted that the U.S. and Israel have a “shared objective to see Hamas defeated in Rafah.”

Allison McManus, an analyst at the Center for American Progress, said, “We’ve had really mixed messages in the [Biden] administration’s stance on Rafah. We see these verbal signals of restraint, while sending all kinds of weapons to Israel.”

Currently, a larger question looms regarding what tactics will be used to ensure the safety of Palestinian civilians.

Dr. Zaher Sahloul, president of the aid group MedGlobal, told USA TODAY that if such a military invasion takes place, “you will have more famine. You will have more people dying from a lack of medical aid and medical supplies,” and what is expected will be “a bloodbath.”

Still, a spokesperson from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said, according Reuters, Israel was “moving ahead” with a ground operation. However, a timeline for it has been kept under wraps.

Nonetheless, according to one senior U.S. official, the IDF presented its plans to the Department of Defense in recent weeks. Those plans, they said, suggested a gradual operation in Rafah rather than a full-scale invasion of the entire city.

The U.S. official added that the Israeli plan presented to the Biden administration would not seek a full-scale evacuation but that each neighborhood would be evacuated on a case-by-case basis.