Who Is Calling The Shots In Gaza? – OpEd
The Rafah crisis is threatening to blow up in the face of the US-sponsored Gaza ceasefire reached last 9 October and give Israel the opportunity to restart its deadly war on the enclave which many say this is what it wants to do.
At the heart of the crisis is the 200-or so Hamas fighters huddled deep underground in the Rafah tunnels, in the far south of the Gaza enclave. Under the ceasefire deal, they are supposed to be transported either to the safe areas under Hamas control or outside the Strip if this is what they want.
However, Israel continues to drag its feet on the issue, bearing in mind that 53 percent of the territory – the so-called `Yellow Line’ – is still in its hands. Prime Minister Netanyahu may be rengading on his word. He now says the Hamas fighters may not leave Rafah freely and should be taken directly to Israeli jails.
He is now promising the American administration these fighters will not be harmed or killed but must be interrogated and remain in prison. His stance that has become clear over the past days is not pleasing the White House. US president Donald Trump has invested a great deal in the Gaza ceasefire and deal.
For him, this is just the beginning and wants to establish a general and genuine peace process beginning with Gaza and reaching the West Bank and the Middle East through his Abraham Accords. He wants more Arab and Muslim countries to join that accords to normalize relations with them and that seeks normalization with Israel. He wants a “full-blow peace circle” under his command.
His envoys, Steve Witkoff and Gerard Kushner are meeting in Israel to warn Netanyahu to implement the 20-point plan outlined by the US president last month in Sharm El Sheikh and not to try and derail the Gaza ceasefire, but continue with process and allow the safe passage of the Hamas fighters in a bid to start to the second part of the deal on Gaza.
This includes stripping Hamas of its arms, increase aid to the starved population of the enclave, which is still being severly hampared by Israel and set up a “technocrat committee” to take over from the Islamists and start ruling the territory through international guarantees and the formation of international, mainly Arab and Muslim peace-keeping force that would take over from the Israeli army which would need to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
Trump is determined to see his deal through and recognizes there are difficulties because of the extensive Israeli bombing of Gaza. Hamas has only managed to hand over the remains of 24 out of a total of 28 Israeli bodies who were killed in the Gaza Strip the past two years.
This is angring Israelis who feel that Hamas is “chopping and changing” and they know perfectly well where these bodies are, a claim that is strenuously denied by the Islamic organization which says that if it wanted that it wouldn’t have set the 20 “alive” Israeli hostages free in the first 72 hours of the deal last October.
Netanyahu and over the past month have been threatening to re-start the war if Hamas doesn’t deliver the rest of the remains. But the organization has always argued that without the proper equipment, it has been an intensely difficult exercise to get to the bodies that are deeply buried underground because of the heavy bombing of the area that changed its turrain as about 100,000 tons of explosives were dropped om Gaza since 7 October, 2023.
Although Israel has subsequently allowed equipment plus experts made up of Egyptian personnel, Hamas officials say the final four Israeli remains would be even more difficult to find, adding to the tension that already exists between Israel and Hamas and now the Americans, who feel that under no circumstances the ceasefire deal should be broken.
Thus despite the intransigence shown by Netanyahu and his extremist government, the White House is keeping the pressure up that war is no longer an option but what Hamas needs to do is continue to search for the missing bodies. The recent discovery of the remains of Hadar Golden, an Israeli soldier taken by Hamas in Israel’s 2014 war on Gaza, and handed over to the Israelis should have been an “olive branch,” however Netanyahu is in no mood to grant the 200 Hamas fighters a safe passage from Rafah despite the pressure being exerted by the Americans.
All this continues to cause delay on the second stage of implementing the Gaza deal that includes the badly-needed redevelopment of Gaza and which had been vastly and ghastly destroyed by the Israeli army.
With very little confidence-building many fear once Hamas do handover the rest of the Israeli bodies – nine of which has been found in areas under Israeli army control which Hamas members were at first strictly forbidden from entering – Netanyhau would re-start the war come what may and through excuses about the security of Israel. But Trump and his team continue to watch carefully and exert pressure.
They are not about to let Netanyahu do a U-turn on Gaza. Trump, personally staked his reputation that there will be no war on Gaza. His Civil Military Coordination Center (CMCC) under US Admiral Brad Cooper and American diplomat Steven Fagin, and manned by 200 American soldiers and representatives from 40 Nations including Egypt, Qatar, UAE, Jordan, German and Australia is designed to maintain a “peace order” to stabilize and coordinate relief efforts in Gaza.
The Center and its role today is basically seen as a snub to Israel despite their now still “low-level shooting and destroying” military activity in different parts of the Gaza Strip. Obervors, nevertheless suggests the CMCC is there to tell Israel that it can no longer to do what it will in the enclave nor freely kill or starve its people.
Trump, unlike any other American president, is now willing to go the extra-mile and hold Israel at bay while continuing to speak of the US special relations with Tel Aviv. But there is, and for the first time, a “battle of will” being played out with the US president sticking to his guards firmly putting himself in control over Israel’s next moves over Gaza.
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