Israel’s most perilous moment

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Sunday. Picture: AFP

The Israeli government seems to be laying the ground for the most difficult military operation yet in its war against Hamas, a high-risk assault on Rafah in which the military, political and humanitarian stakes cannot be overstated.

Israel is in an agonising bind over any military ground invasion of Rafah because the path to victory is littered with terrible choices. To destroy Hamas – its goal since the October 7 slaughter of 1200 Israelis – it must conduct some form of ground operation in Rafah. To not do so would leave Hamas militarily intact and, although the terrorist group is severely weakened from the seven-month war, its survival in Rafah would give it a solid base from which to reform and again threaten Israel.

Those Western nations who now say Israel must not attack Hamas in Rafah are effectively walking away from their once-­strident support for Israel’s pledge to destroy the terror group as a military and political force in the wake of October 7. If Israel lets Hamas survive at this late stage, what was the point of this war and why did the West support Israel in its mission then, but not now?

But Israel no longer has the freedom to attack Rafah with the same impunity as it did Gaza City in the north during the early days of the war when heavy and indiscriminate air strikes killed too many civilians.

Rafah is a city with a population that now includes more than a million displaced Palestinians sheltering there after fleeing the war in the north. There is nowhere obvious for them to safely go.

The US does not want Israel to attack Rafah without having a plan to minimise civilian casualties and it says it is yet to see such a plan from the Israelis. This partial evacuation may be the beginning of such a plan but it is too early to tell.

Either way, it is clear that Israel cannot afford to conduct an all-out attack on Rafah when it is heaving with displaced Gazans without becoming a generational pariah in the global community.

The challenge for Israel will be to conduct its necessary military campaign in Rafah with finesse and patience, employing smaller scale attacks using special forces rather than large-scale infantry.

This will increase the risk to ­Israeli forces and it will slow the destruction of Hamas. As such, it will be opposed by pro-Israeli hardliners. But these tactics are the only feasible and sensible ­alternatives open to Israel if it wants to destroy Hamas without a horrific civilian death toll.

The question is whether Benjamin Netanyahu, who has conducted this war so far with the subtlety of a bulldozer, is willing to oversee a more intelligent and nuanced ­assault than he or his right-wing cabinet colleagues might desire.

This is a huge moment for Israel, Gaza and the Middle East. The final act of this war, the flushing of Hamas from Rafah, will be the hardest and most dangerous yet.