Israel is beginning to give signs that the next military movements in Gaza are approaching. The army has deployed artillery units and armored personnel carriers in the south of its territory, next to the borders of Gaza, according to the
Ma'ariv
newspaper . This movement of troops is one of the steps that the Israeli press relates to the announced ground offensive in Rafah, the southern town where more than 1.4 million of the 2.2 million Gazans take refuge and the only Gaza city in the that the land army has not yet entered. High-level representatives of the United States and Israel held a virtual meeting this Thursday to specifically discuss plans regarding Rafah, the White House has confirmed.
These new steps come after the front that Israel has open in the north of the country experienced a brief period of calm last week, coinciding with the Eid al Fitr holiday, which closes the holy month of Ramadan. That ephemeral respite gave way this Wednesday to one of the attacks with the most Israeli victims in the more than six months that the Gaza war has lasted. A drone from the Shiite militia party Hezbollah bombed an Israeli reconnaissance company in the Bedouin town of Arab Al Aramshe, in northern Israel, wounding 14 soldiers and four civilians. This Thursday, the commanders of the Israeli troops stationed in the north of the country met with local officials and the local military to "increase their preparation" in that region, according to the
Haaretz
newspaper . Overnight, Israeli warplanes attacked Hezbollah positions on Lebanon's southern border.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military response to the attack with almost 300 Iranian drones and missiles last Saturday remains up in the air. Israeli sources told ABC News on Thursday that Israel prepared and then aborted retaliatory attacks against Iran on at least two nights this week. An unnamed senior US official has described it as “unlikely” that Israel will carry out an attack on Iran until after the Passover holiday, which ends on April 29 this year.
Iran warned this Thursday about one of the possible targets of an Israeli military attack: its nuclear program facilities, according to the Revolutionary Guard agency Tasnim. According to Tehran, the purposes of this program are exclusively civil. The West has always feared that the country would acquire atomic weapons - Israel already has them - and that is why it imposed sanctions. The commander of the Revolutionary Guard in charge of protecting these facilities has warned of a possible review "of the Iranian nuclear doctrine" in the event that this attack becomes a reality, in a probable allusion to the development of atomic weapons,
The Israeli military retaliation against Iran is taken for granted, although its scope is unknown, which the United States and the rest of the Western allies are now trying to minimize, after having failed to convince Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to respond to the Iranian aggression. This Thursday the Israeli Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, visited the Tel Nof military air base, in the center of the country, to congratulate the pilots who participated in intercepting the Iranian attack. There he has defended that Israel have “freedom of action to do as it pleases.”
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The Israeli Government has also taken steps that indicate that the international community has also failed to impose a red line regarding its ground offensive in Rafah, southern Gaza. "The main lines of the operation" to invade this city next to the border with Egypt have already been approved by the General Staff and Minister Gallant,
Ma'ariv has announced.
The possible invasion of Rafah could become a bargaining chip related to retaliation against Iran, if what the Arab newspaper published in London
Al Araby Al Jadeed
stated this Thursday is confirmed . This publication cites an Egyptian source who assures that the Joe Biden Administration has accepted the Israeli plan to invade Rafah, in exchange for the Jewish State not carrying out a large-scale attack against Iran. This Thursday, an Israeli delegation discussed this offensive with another American delegation in a virtual meeting that continued the one they held on April 1. The meeting was of a high level. On the American side, it has been led by the National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, and the White House Middle East envoy, Brett McGurk, while on the Israeli side, it has been chaired by the Minister of Strategic Affairs, Ron Dermer, and National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi, according to
Haaretz
.
According to that newspaper, which quotes a Washington official, the United States is looking for alternatives to the Israeli offensive in Rafah. However, the latest troop movements, the purchase of 40,000 tents, the call-up of thousands of reservists for “operational activities on the Gaza front” and the meeting of the Defense Minister this Monday to “debate a series of measures in preparation for operations in Rafah” indicate that the Government is not abandoning its purpose of invading the city. As he did before in the north and center of the Strip, Netanyahu now says that Hamas leaders and four battalions are hiding in Rafah and that 133 hostages are still being held there. Many of them are believed to be dead.
The Israeli army has not yet entered the city, but it does not stop bombing it. In the airstrikes this morning, 11 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. Among them, five children in Rafah.
More sanctions
Since Netanyahu announced last week that this operation “already had a date” but without revealing it, the diplomatic context has changed notably in his favor. Before Iran's missile and drone attack on Saturday night, the United States had shown signs of irritation toward the Israeli government over the attack that killed seven aid workers from the NGO World Central Kitchen on April 1. Biden had also conditioned the offensive in Rafah on his ally presenting him with a credible plan for the evacuation and protection of civilians. Other Western governments and humanitarian organizations had urged Israel to stop the invasion in a place whose original population of about 250,000 people has been almost sixfold by those displaced by the war.
The Iranian barrage changed everything. Criticism of Israel then turned into statements of “unwavering” support from Washington even before Tehran began launching its drones and missiles. Israel is now back in the eyes of its main ally in the vantage point it occupied just after the Hamas attack on October 7 that caused 1,200 deaths: that of a country victim of aggression that resorts to self-defense. That advantageous position, which had been lost due to the war in Gaza and its almost 34,000 deaths - according to the Strip's Ministry of Health - has returned accompanied by an unexpected negotiating asset: the possibility of obtaining diplomatic and strategic advantages due to the fear of The US and other countries expect an Israeli retaliation to trigger a war in the Middle East.
Biden has told Israel that he will not support it in a direct attack against Iran. With the open war in Gaza and the Lebanese front threatening to escalate, Israel also has no interest in opening a military conflict with an adversary that, although militarily inferior, is still possessing military capacity. Still, the country is playing the containment card well. The United States announced this Thursday new sanctions on 16 Iranian individuals and two entities involved in the production of missiles and drones, including several members of the Revolutionary Guard and the Iranian Minister of Defense,
Macarena Vidal Liy
reports from Washington . The United Kingdom has also announced sanctions on 13 senior Iranian officials, while the EU and the G-7 are considering adopting new economic measures against Iran.
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