With the page seeming to have at least temporarily turned on a direct confrontation between Israel and Iran, the promised Israeli invasion of Rafah is once again looming large. On Friday, a “high-level” Egyptian delegation arrived in Israel to continue attempts to negotiate a ceasefire, as Cairo’s fears of a large exodus of Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai have been renewed.
Chances of success are dim, to say the least. According to reports, Egypt’s strategy is to try to first negotiate a release of some of the Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, another temporary “pause” in Israeli assaults, and an Israeli agreement to allow people to return to the areas they fled from in the northern part of Gaza. The idea is that if this agreement holds, it will delay the invasion of Rafah and hopefully lead to a permanent ceasefire.
Meanwhile, Israel has set up thousands of tents a few miles north of Rafah to which they propose to “evacuate” people ahead of their invasion. But let’s be clear, this is not a humanitarian gesture, as Joe Biden and other American officials would present it. Israel isn’t intending an “evacuation.” It is the forced displacement of people who have already been forcibly displaced, many of them multiple times and in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.
Hopeless talks
Egypt, quite understandably, is trying to prevent an attack on Rafah that is very likely to force even more Palestinians across the border. Since October, between 80,000 and 100,000 Palestinians have fled Gaza into Egypt, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Ambassador to Egypt, Diab Allouh.
It’s worth noting that many of those who have gotten out are in some way privileged, either because they have connections that could help get them out or they had the means to pay some of the profiteers circling around Gaza and squeezing large sums of money out of desperate people. Most people in Gaza do not have such means, of course, which makes Egypt even more reluctant to see them cross the border.
Since the first brief pause in fighting, when Hamas released 105 of the Israeli and foreign national hostages it kidnapped, ceasefire talks have been little more than political theater. Neither Israel nor Hamas is willing to concede what the other side is demanding as a minimum. Israel uses the hostages as rhetorical devices but has been uninterested in stopping the slaughter in Gaza. Hamas, for its part, is unwilling to settle for less than an end to Israel’s campaign, although it is willing to release a limited number of hostages in a prisoner exchange if Israel will allow Palestinians to return to their homes in the north, which Israel has been reluctant to do.
Ending the massacres in Gaza is the one and only thing that brings the hostages home. Israel and its supporters are uninterested in paying that price.
Periodically, talks have broken down, and each side blames the other, but the reality is that there is little room for an agreement. Hamas has no reason to agree to anything less than an end to Israel’s operations in Gaza. All Israel has offered is a short delay in its genocidal operation. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to “eliminate Hamas,” a goal that is and always was impossible.