Rafah Is Burning

The Israeli invasion of Rafah is as destructive as its previous campaigns; it's just better hidden.

I could hear the explosions. Yesterday afternoon I was swimming in a pool on the seaside cliffs of Netanya, Israel when I heard the loud, rumbling booms. They were loud enough and clear enough to be easily distinguishable from thunder or sonic booms, which is what I initially thought. We could look up and see the puffs of smoke in the sky from the attempted interceptions of rockets fired from Gaza towards Tel Aviv, some 30 miles to our south.

According to the Israeli Defense Forces, a barrage of eight rockets were fired from Rafah. They claim to have intercepted most of them. But with makeshift rockets like this, it’s difficult to determine whether they actually were destroyed by interceptors or simply broke up as they neared their targets. The only injuries were two people lightly wounded from shrapnel from the rockets or the interceptors. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack

Later that day, the IDF claimed to have destroyed the rocket launcher that they claimed initiated the attack. It was the first time rockets had struck Tel Aviv since January 1 and the first time sirens had gone off in the city since January 29.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir immediately posted on Twitter: “Rafah! With full force!” Former Prime Minister Natalie Bennett posted, “Hamas will never stop its terror until we destroy it. We simply have no choice.”

We learned more about Israel’s choice this morning. We awoke to the news that Israel had conducted one of its more deadly attacks in Rafah — part of what it  terms its “limited operation“ in the last remaining city in Gaza not fully occupied or destroyed by the Israelis.

Israel apparently dropped several large, U.S.-supplied bombs on a refugee camp. Aid organizations report that the IDF attack killed two Hamas militants and at least 45 refugees, mostly women and children. Many more have been injured, some horribly. The area had been designated a safe area. At least 800,000 Palestinians have been forced to flee Rafah so that Israel could continue its ground invasion of the city. Gruesome photos of beheaded children and severely burned victims soon filled non-Israeli social media.

As aid workers say repeatedly, no place in Gaza is safe.

Rafah refugee camp bombed by the IDF

European leaders quickly condemned the attack. The United States issued a vague statement about Israel’s right to defend itself:

The devastating images following the IDF strike in Rafah last night that killed dozens of innocent Palestinians are heartbreaking. Israel has a right to go after Hamas, and we understand this strike killed two senior Hamas terrorists who are responsible for attacks against Israeli civilians. But as we’ve been clear, Israel must take every precaution possible to protect civilians.

President Biden has previously warned Israel that he would not supply weapons if it invaded Rafah. He told CNN in an early May interview, “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem.”

Since then, administration officials have backtracked. I heard senior officials say at a conference last week that Biden would act if there was “a full-scale invasion of Rafah.” Official statements have added similar caveats to justify their failure to restrain Israel. The administration has said that the slow-motion invasion of Rafah that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right government have been waging for the past few week did not cross Biden’s vague line.

I have been in Israel for over a week. Today is the first time that I have seen on Israeli television any scenes of the Palestinian victims of Israel’s war. Until now, all the focus has been on the hostages. The few videos of Gaza usually show IDF troops walking through rubble, on guard against attack. Mass demonstrations (including those held in Tel Aviv just this Saturday) demand a cease-fire and the release of the Israeli hostages. Netanyahu ignores the demands. His extreme officials call for the indefinite occupation of Gaza and expansion of settlements in the West Bank and even Gaza.

All this, even as The New York Times reports that:

Israeli forces appear to be pushing closer to the center of the city of Rafah, according to satellite imagery, which shows military vehicles and widespread destruction of neighborhoods more than two and a half miles into Gaza from the Israeli border, as well as Palestinians fleeing the city even outside of areas the Israeli military has said to evacuate…Much of what is seen is consistent with the aftermath of Israeli bombardment and ground operations elsewhere in Gaza since the war began last October

It is too early to say, but it may be that this horrific attack — and the Israeli killing of an Egyptian soldier today at the Rafah gate — may be a turning point that convinces Biden to finally say “Enough is enough.”

NOTE: I have not written this newsletter for over a month. I did not feel that I had anything to add. But after this week visiting family in Israel, I have a few things to say. I hope to post again very soon.