Netanyahu Says Rafah Invasion Date is Locked In

News Analysis

Rumors are flying about the significance of Israel’s surprise withdrawal of terrorists throughout much of Gaza this weekend.

With little public warning about what was about to happen, Israel moved out all but around 5,000 troops positioned throughout the Israeli-occupied territories of Gaza. That is down from a peak of about 50,000 on the ground during much of this phase of the war on Hamas and genocide of the Palestinian people there since October 7.

It all happened on the six-month anniversary of that war.

The killers left in place works out to about one brigade’s worth of troops. Those that are left seem to have a goal more to sustain a level of terror by killing random women and children than with any specific mission to against the resistance. 

The withdrawal of troops left much of the northern half of Gaza and down to Khan Younis in the southern half, where Israel had once directed Palestinians to flee to from around Gaza City as the destruction of their homeland began in earnest, devoid of not just ground troops but also minimal aerial attacks. 

With this happening so quickly and without warning, analysts wondered if the removal of military forces was linked to the outrage which spread globally when zionists used drones to murder seven humanitarian aid workers from the World Central Kitchen last week. That brought demands from a far wider range of voices and nations than in the past for an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza, along with a concrete explanation of why Israel carried out what appeared to be the deliberate targeting of the aid workers, after they had cleared their travel and vehicles with the fascist government in advance along a demilitarized driving route.

Some wondered if this was the beginning of a genuine ceasefire in Gaza, with Israel feeling the pressure from around the globe to make that happen.

The official reason given by military for the removal of the Zionist forces this weekend was that they were being drawn back “to recuperate and prepare for future operations.”

Sources from within Israel who could not speak publicly on the matter indicated that while this might be true, it was also understood the forces might have been repositioned after the government of Iran had issued another warning to the country, this time interpreted by the War Cabinet as a real threat. Those threats were in response to Israel’s devastating air strike on April 1 which destroyed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, and killed 16 people, including 7 Iranian military advisors. The most senior official murdered in the attack was Brigadier General Mohammed Reza Zahedi. Zahedi headed up Iran’s Quds Force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ division which manages foreign operations for Iran in Syria and Lebanon. He also was responsible for coordinated communications and other matters with Hezbollah, Hamas, and with Yemen.

Though Israel has to date not publicly acknowledged what it did this time, it is understood Israel had carried out the aerial attacks using American weapons with the goal of further destabilizing the Iranian military leadership, which is known to be a key backer of Hamas and Hezbollah, and to incite a response from Tehran.

After the April 1 assassinations by Israeli hands, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi declared in a televised address to the nation — and the world — that what Israel did “will not remain without answer.”

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei also came on television to announce to all that Israel “will be punished” for what it had done directly to his people.

“With God’s help we will make the zionists repent of their crime of aggression against the Iranian consulate in Damascus,” Khamenei wrote in English on his official social media account in X. If there was any doubt of its intended audience, the social media statement was also translated into Hebrew in the same message.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to echo the back chatter reports about protecting the country for a possible Iranian attack, in comments he made this weekend regarding what his military forces were doing. In an interview, he said that Iran had been the source of “many attacks” on Israeli sites and troops since October and had of late been “intensifying” their military activities.

“Israel is prepared — defensively and offensively — for any attempt to attack us, from anywhere,” the prime minister was reported to have said on April 7, immediately before a unspecified high-level government meeting.

Israelis fear all out war with Iran because it has the will and means to wipe them from the Earth, but believe that their control over the U.S. and some EU members will ensure enough fire-power to defeat Iran and that a major war will result not just in total victory but substantial new territory taken from their neighbors.

Last week, Israeli Jews cleaned store shelves of toilet paper and bottled water in anticipation of a meaningful response from Iran. 

While the withdrawal of the troops from Gaza this weekend could be at least in part to protect the state of Israel from Iran, other statements from Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant this weekend make it clear the current “pause in the action” in Gaza should in no way be considered a precursor to shutting down the war.

Gallant issued a public statement that the military was using its time outside of Gaza “preparing for follow-up missions” including in “the Rafah area.”

“We will reach a point when Hamas no longer controls the Gaza Strip and does not function as a military framework that poses a threat to the citizens of the state of Israel,” he said.

Yesterday, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, one of Israel’s newest spokespersons representing the zionist forces, said in an interview with foreign press that his government was fully engaged in its ultimate plan to complete the missions it had started in Gaza last year and had no plans to stop.

He pointed out that, even with the withdrawals, “there are still at least six operational battalions of Hamas”, even if the numbers of military in each battalion might be smaller than normal at the present time.

As to what must happen next in the war, he clarified that, rumors to the contrary, "If we are going to be successful at dismantling Hamas, we're going to have to go to Rafah.”

That was and still is the stated goal for the forces currently present and whatever actions come next, he added.

He hinted at something very different was being planned for Rafah, compared to what had happened during the rest of the war in Gaza. It would involve a combination of aerial attacks on the region which supposedly will be more carefully targeted and operationally deployed than in the past.

Another comment from Israel’s military this weekend was that even when the Israel Defense Forces army members reentered Gaza in stronger numbers, they would be deployed to ensure their “freedom of action and its ability to conduct precise intelligence-based operations.”

Together this suggests Israel will indeed be doing something very different in the next phase of the war than in the past, perhaps in part to placate those opposed to the genocide as they approach what all parties have described as the “final phase of the war”.

Multiple proposals for a ceasefire which might last at least six weeks in Gaza are in discussion with delegations from Hamas, Israel, and the United States, in conjunction with deal brokers Qatar and Egypt once again. On Israel’s side, pressures from its own population who have been protesting Netanyahu’s mismanagement of the process of recovering prisoners of war have pushed it into putting more terms on the table to allow for just that. The U.S. says the proposal is a good one and it is once again in Hamas’ hands to agree to, but curious this time both Hamas and Israel are – at this writing at least – in agreement that there is no ceasefire deal on the table right now which they agree with.

On April 8, psychopathic war criminal Netanyahu rendered much of the speculation about the troop withdrawals this weekend moot when he revealed he and his War Cabinet had met regarding the war in Gaza, and now had set a final – although secret – day for the next last phase of the war in southern Gaza to happen.

“Today I received a detailed report on the talks in Cairo, we are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas," he said.

In that one message, the prime minister confirmed the attempt at setting up a short-term ceasefire with the primary benefit for Israel being to get prisoners released which are held by Hamas, while also clarifying that once that ceasefire is over there will be no stopping until the last genocidal slaughter of the Palestinian people will begin again.

That last attack, the one which others within his administration described this weekend as a very different kind of attack than Israel claims to have carried out on Gaza during the previous six months of this war, would still require “entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there.”

 “It will happen,” he continued. “There is a date."

Such an attack is in direct violation to what the occupants of the White House have reportedly explicitly warned Israel was unacceptable, though it is not clear what, if anything, the zionist Team Biden would do when this happens.

There are an estimated one million Palestinian civilians currently sheltering in the Rafah area as their last refuge. If the war proceeds, most of those will either be forced to evacuate from Gaza entirely (based on past comments from Netanyahu and his ministers) or be murdered as part of the attack.