Hamas could regain power in Gaza without ‘clear plan’ from Israel
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The US has warned that a power vacuum in Gaza would be filled by Hamas again amid a resurgence of fighting between the terror group and the IDF.
Fighting broke out in the northern refugee camp of Jabaliya over the weekend, an area thought to have been cleared by Israel late last year.
It comes as Israeli sources warn that Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader, may have evaded Israeli authorities and fled to northern Gaza from the besieged city of Rafah.
The West has remained cautious about an Israeli attack on Rafah, the last remaining stronghold of Hamas and a city where Palestinians have fled to avoid fierce fighting elsewhere.
Lord Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, told Israel yesterday it must have a “clear plan” to protect civilians if it attacks Rafah.
Antony Blinken,the US Secretary of State, later added that Israel needs to have a plan for post-war governance in Gaza, otherwise, he said, there will be “a vacuum that’s likely to be filled by chaos, anarchy and ultimately by Hamas again”.
In an interview with CBS’ Meet the Nation, the top US diplomat said that while Israel might have some “initial success” in a potential military operation in Rafah, the “high cost to civilians” would not be worth it.
He added that without a plan for who will take over Gaza after Hamas is defeated, Israel “will be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency because a lot of armed Hamas [fighters] will be left, no matter what they do in Rafah”.
According to The Times of Israel, the Hamas leader is no longer in Rafah, having fled to the tunnels around Khan Younis before the IDF closed in on the area and took control of the Rafah Crossing last week.
Rafah has become a major focal point for Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, as he reiterates the aims to both bring back the remaining 132 hostages held by the terror group and eliminate Hamas in its entirety. As the last military stronghold of the group, Rafah remains a key strategic target.
Multiple commanders and figures from the Hamas leadership have so far been eliminated but Sinwar and his closest aides, including Mohammed Deif, the head of the group’s military wing, and Sinwar’s brother, Mohammed, remain uncaught and are believed to be using the hostages as human shields, according to Israeli sources.
In spite of enduring over seven months of intense fighting, Hamas has continued to barrage Israel with rockets over the weekend, hitting a community children’s park in Be’er Sheva on Friday and injuring three people when a rocket hit a home in southern Israel on Saturday.
As fears that many more members of Hamas are once again spreading across the north, Israel said on Saturday it had deployed forces to the city of Jabalya, north of Gaza City.
According to Haaretz, the IDF unofficially claimed that the absence of a clear diplomatic process in conjunction with the fighting and the lack of defined objectives are affecting the military achievements of the war, which has led to the deaths of over 30,000 in Gaza, according to Hamas figures.
Israel claims to have killed over 14,000 Hamas fighters.
Palestinian sources in Gaza told Haaretz that Hamas and other factions are trying to intensify the fighting in the northern part of the Strip and in Gaza City in particular through guerrilla tactics, undermining Israel’s efforts to drive the forces south and eliminate the last remaining battalions.
In addition to Jabalya, the IDF said on Sunday it is continuing to operate in the Zeitoun area in northern Gaza as Hamas spreads back to the strip’s north, regrouping months after the IDF claimed to have dismantled the Hamas presence there.
A statement said “over the past day, IDF troops eliminated a number of terrorists in close-quarters combat” in Zeitoun, in addition to air strikes targeting terrorist cells and terror infrastructure, which it says “were dismantled”.
US-led peace talks with Egypt and Qatar as mediators, have so far failed, leading to the longest Gaza war since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.
The US is offering Israel key intelligence to locate Hamas’s leaders hidden underground in a bid to prevent a full scale invasion of Rafah, it emerged on Sunday.
