Israel plans to end war against Hamas in Gaza in eight weeks, as Josh Frydenberg visits Oct 7 sites
Israel is preparing to wipe out Hamas in Rafah and end Gaza military action within weeks, as US officials scramble to broker a deal and avoid war on the Lebanese border.
Israel is preparing to wipe out Hamas terrorists in Rafah and end military action in Gaza within six to eight weeks, as senior US officials scramble to broker a deal and avoid war on the Lebanese border amid fears of violence during Ramadan.
Israel Defence Forces chiefs have put soldiers on high alert and moved personnel into key positions in Gaza, the West Bank and northern command posts, days before the Islamic holy month starting and ahead of a final push to destroy Hamas’s four remaining battalions holed up in Rafah, senior Israeli government officials have told The Weekend Australian.
The revelations came as former treasurer and deputy Liberal Party leader Josh Frydenberg on Friday called on Anthony Albanese to visit the October 7 Hamas massacre sites, saying the Prime Minister should “demonstrate the moral courage that this pivotal moment in history requires” and that visiting the devastated kibbutzes was “no photo op”.
The Weekend Australian can also reveal that senior Israeli officials are urging Australia and western democracies to maintain support for the fight against Tehran-backed terrorists, who are receiving direct and indirect support from Russia and China.
With Israelis still reeling from last year’s Hamas attacks, catastrophic intelligence failures, the IDF’s flat-footed response on October 7 and mounting speculation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on borrowed time, Anthony Albanese has been warned of major security implications for Australia if Ukraine falls and Israel’s military campaigns fail.
Amid international pressure on Israel to finish its war in Gaza, senior officials are working to complete operations in Rafah, negotiate the release of hostages, which is likely to involve a mass prisoner exchange, and secure a ceasefire. It is understood there are grave fears for more than 130 hostages in Gaza – held by Hamas and other groups – who are understood to be suffering from deteriorating physical and mental conditions.
The Weekend Australian understands that once the war in Gaza is over, Israeli authorities will take initial responsibility for administering services, then seek to pass them to local non-Hamas leaders backed by Arab nations including Qatar and Egypt.
After months of skirmishes between Hezbollah terrorists and IDF forces in the north, where 61,000 Israelis were evacuated, major conflict is not considered imminent as the Iran-backed Shia militants hold back using their long-range missiles. People have been killed on the border in recent days and hundreds of Hezbollah and associated fighters have died or been injured since fighting broke out.
After travelling across Israel this week with an Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council delegation of business leaders and journalists, Mr Frydenberg, who rose to become the most senior elected Jewish politician in Australian history before losing his Melbourne seat of Kooyong at the 2022 election, on Friday called on the Prime Minister to visit the October 7 Hamas massacre sites.
The 52-year-old, who has avoided the limelight since exiting politics and taking up a senior position in investment banking, met survivors and toured Kibbutz Be’eri where more than 100 people, including Australian grandmother Galit Carbone, were murdered by Hamas.
“As drones buzzed overhead and artillery shells thundered in the distance we walked past one burnt home after another. Signs of Hamas’s barbarism were everywhere,” Mr Frydenberg writes in an article for The Weekend Australian.
“Seeing the kibbutz myself and listening to the stories of survivors including many who had dedicated their lives to building ties with their Palestinian neighbours brought home the enormity of what happened that day and the dangers that now confront us all.
“It is a visit I would encourage our Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to also make. This is no photo op.
“But rather an opportunity like after 9/11 to express solidarity with a fellow democracy in its hour of need and demonstrate the moral courage that this pivotal moment in history requires.”
Foreign Minister Penny Wong came under fire in January after failing to visit Israeli communities devastated by Hamas terrorists, who killed about 1200 Israelis and took 253 hostages. Senator Wong, who met families of hostages, travelled to Ramallah in the West Bank to meet senior Palestinian Authority figures.
Responding to criticism of Senator Wong, Mr Albanese on January 15 said “it’s not about an opportunity for a photo op”. Assistant Foreign Affairs Minister Tim Watts was sent by the government in December to meet Israeli, Palestinian, UN, Qatari and Egyptian officials.
Mr Frydenberg and the AIJAC delegation held meetings with high-ranking officials including: Israeli President Isaac Herzog; Strategic Affairs Minister, Netanyahu confidant and former Israeli ambassador to the US Ron Dermer; former prime minister Naftali Bennett; Speaker of the Knesset Amir Ohana; and former Israeli ambassador to the UK Mark Regev.
The delegation also met: the Druze family of Salman Habaka, a slain IDF war hero and tank commander who saved dozens of lives in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas massacres; families of hostages held in Gaza; Palestinian deputy foreign minister Amal Jadou; and former Palestinian Liberation Organisation negotiator Xavier Abu Eid.
In his article, Mr Frydenberg asks what would “happen if it was us in Australia who were subject to a terrorist attack the size of October 7 … we would be responding to nearly 4000 dead and 1000 taken hostage”.
“We would, and the Australian public would expect us to, use all means at our disposal to end the rocket fire, dismantle the terrorist entity on our border and return the hostages to their families,” he writes. We would want every one of our friends standing by our side just as Israel does today.
“We need to understand the events of October 7 have local, regional and global ramifications that extend well beyond the Gaza Strip. Should Israel not achieve a decisive victory and restore its own security dangerous consequences will follow. As former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke once said ‘if the bell tolls for Israel, it won’t just toll for Israel, it will toll for all mankind’.”
The Weekend Australian understands a parliamentary delegation will travel to Israel over the weekend ahead of an expected visit by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in coming weeks. The delegation consists of Coalition MPs including opposition frontbenchers James Paterson, Dan Tehan, Bridget McKenzie and Jacinta Price.
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham and Labor MP Josh Burns in December led an AIJAC-sponsored cross-party delegation to Israel that included Labor MP Michelle Ananda-Rajah, Liberal National Party MP Andrew Wallace and Liberal MP Zoe McKenzie. The group visited Kibbutz Kfar Aza where 50 residents were killed by Hamas.
MPs and senators are expected to be warned that unless Australia and western partners back Israel’s existential fight against Iran-backed terrorists on their borders, China and Russia will be emboldened to ramp up territorial claims in Taiwan, Ukraine and beyond.
It is understood Russia, which has provided assurances to Israel that no attacks will be launched from Syrian bases that Moscow largely controls, has been linked with drones and weapons used by Iranian-sponsored terror groups operating in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Concerns have also been aired about TikTok algorithms and rising Chinese interference in the Middle East, which have raised the spectre of Beijing’s global pursuits in relation to Taiwan and the South China Sea.
Ahead of the US election in November, Mr Frydenberg says: “We need America to remain strong so that it can provide the leadership and resources we need in our part of the world.
“At a global level anything less than a crushing defeat for Hamas will strengthen the hand of those, including (Vladimir) Putin’s Russia, who are aggressively seeking to undermine the US-led global order.”
Israel has pushed back against criticism it can’t destroy the “idea of Hamas”, indicating its focus is dismantling the terror group and eradicating its infrastructure, weapons and leadership headed by terrorist and October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar. Israeli officials point to the fact Nazism and Islamic State-linked Sunni extremism were never wiped out and exist in pockets of society across the world.
With long-serving Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas considered irrelevant and weak, the Israeli government is devising long-term “de-radicalisation” strategies anchored by co-investment with Arab states to deliver better infrastructure, education systems and facilities for Palestinians.
As Israeli and Palestinian negotiators remain at loggerheads on a ceasefire, Mr Netanyahu on Friday said Israel would conduct a final offensive into Rafah. It is expected about 1.2 million civilians in Rafah would need to be shifted before strikes begin.
“There is international pressure and it’s growing but, particularly when the international pressure rises, we must close ranks, we need to stand together against the attempts to stop the war,” Mr Netanyahu said, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Speaking at a graduation ceremony at an Israeli army officers’ training school, Mr Netanyahu said the country must resist a “calculated attempt” to blame it for the crimes of Hamas.
“Whoever tells us not to act in Rafah is telling us to lose the war and that will not happen,” the Prime Minister said.
While the mood of Israelis remains sombre, there is universal support for IDF operations to secure the safety of border communities and allow more than 100,000 evacuated Israelis from the north and south to return home.
Senior Israeli officials have welcomed the report this week from a team of UN experts finally acknowledging there were “reasonable grounds to believe” Hamas engaged in sexual violence and gang rape during the October 7 attacks. The report also said there was “convincing information” that hostages held in Gaza had been subjected to sexual violence.
However, the experts were scathing of the international response to their intelligence linking funding and personnel working with the UN Relief and Works Agency Palestine Refugees in the Near East to Hamas.
Israeli authorities also dispute Hamas claims that more than 30,000 people have been killed in the Gaza war, suggesting many were terrorists or linked to terrorists, many were killed by friendly fire and that numbers were inflated by natural deaths.
US, French and UN officials on Friday continued to discuss a diplomatic outcome on the Israel-Lebanon border flare-up, where IDF troops and Hezbollah terrorists have spent months exchanging fire, including when The Weekend Australian toured key sites this week.
Israeli commanders, under pressure from the US not to open a new front in the war against Iranian proxies that could trigger a wider regional conflict, is putting military plans in place in the event that no diplomatic outcome is reached.
US President Joe Biden used his State of the Union address on Friday to announce his administration would build a temporary port off the Gaza coast to help deliver humanitarian aid by sea.
Ahead of the Netanyahu government on Thursday deciding against imposing restrictions on access to Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Dr Jadou said she was “deeply concerned” about the proposed bans on accessing one of Islam’s most important sites.
Citing other restrictions on holy places for Christian Palestinians, the Palestinian deputy foreign affairs minister said one small incident could “explode the situation beyond control”.
The author travelled to Israel as a guest of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.
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