[News] The war is lost, so why is Netanyahu still killing civilians in Rafah?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 The war is lost, so why is Netanyahu still killing civilians in Rafah?
By Ramzy Baroud <https://english.palinfo.com/?p=250012>

Tuesday 4-June-2024 -
https://english.palinfo.com/opinion_articles/the-war-is-lost-so-why-is-netanyahu-still-killing-civilians-in-rafah/

Just hours after Israel carried out a gruesome massacre of displaced
Palestinians in the Tel Al-Sultan area west of Rafah in the Gaza Strip on
26 May, it carried out yet another massacre in the Al-Mawasi area. The
first is now known as the “Tents Massacre”. It took place shortly after the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) finally issued a stern demand that,
“Israel must immediately halt its military offensive and any other action
in Rafah which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of
life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

The killing of 50 Palestinians in their own displacement tents was the
answer given by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist
government to the ICJ and the rest of the international community. The
successive Israeli massacres in Rafah demonstrate the degree of
intransigence of Israel’s genocidal regime.

Netanyahu and his Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, who could both be on
the official “wanted” list of the International Criminal Court (ICC) within
weeks, could easily have chosen a different path, even for mere political
maneuvering. They could, for example, have delayed their Rafah operation or
changed strategies, just to avoid further ICJ rulings on the matter.

Instead, they went for the most arrogant and cowardly of choices: killing
civilians.

Their 2000lb bunker-busting bombs dismembered and beheaded children as they
lay beside their mothers in makeshift camps that have no water, no
electricity and no food. While the Israeli army offered the world a clearly
concocted version of what happened, blaming “militants” and such,
Netanyahu’s office described the attack as a mistake.

Both versions, of course, were lies. The Israeli army possesses some of the
most advanced surveillance technology in the world, thanks to US generosity
and continued support. It could easily have distinguished between a
Palestinian Resistance operational area and a refugee camp filled with
children and women.

If the attack was indeed a mistake, what explains the other massacres that
followed, also in Rafah and in nearby Mawasi, which killed and maimed
scores of refugees? And what is the logic behind the killing and wounding
of nearly 130,000 Palestinians since the start of the war on 7 October, the
majority of whom were women and children?

The Tents Massacre was neither a mistake, nor can it be blamed on imaginary
militants operating from inside displaced refugees’ tents. Nevertheless,
Netanyahu did have his own logic. For a start, he wanted to send a direct
message to let the ICJ know that Israel is not perturbed by its direct
order to end the Rafah operation. The intended audience of this message was
not necessarily the ICJ judges, but the international community, which
remains, despite its solidarity rhetoric, ineffectual in influencing the
duration, direction or nature of the Israeli war.

Netanyahu also wanted to score cheap political points against his rivals in
his War Cabinet, by presenting himself as the bold Israeli leader who is
standing up to the whole world. He has stated over and over again that
“[the Jewish people] will stand alone.”

The Israeli leader must also have been informed that more Israeli soldiers
had been captured by the Palestinian Resistance. The latter’s statement
about this on 25 May was issued just one day before Netanyahu attacked
Rafah. From a military point of view, the capturing of more soldiers who
were sent to Gaza supposedly to free other Israeli captives should have
been a “game over” moment.

The Gaza Resistance hasn’t released any more information since the initial,
brief statement by Al-Qassam military spokesman, Abu Obeida. Hamas is known
for releasing information to the public when it is strategically most
opportune to do so, as was the case in its announcement that it is holding
Israeli Colonel Asaf Hamami, who Israel declared to be dead last December.

Netanyahu and his army are trying desperately to pre-empt the angry
reaction in Israeli society about the capture of soldiers by keeping the
news focused on Rafah.

He knows that such massacres widen his circle of support among his extreme
far-right constituency.

Moreover, the timing of the massacre was also a message to the US, the
mediators (Egypt and Qatar), Hamas and even members of the War Cabinet who
are keen on ending the war through a truce agreement. Media reports have
spoken about a potential breakthrough in talks, starting in Paris before
moving to Doha, which showed some willingness on the part of Israel to link
the release of prisoners to a permanent truce.

Such an agreement would be considered a defeat from Netanyahu’s point of
view, and would certainly usher in the end of his political career. Hence,
he simply lashed out against the refugees of Rafah with the hope of
disrupting any potential deal in Doha.

It was for the same reason that his troops opened fire at Egyptian soldiers
at the Rafah Crossing, killing one, possibly two, and wounding more. Egypt
has been an important mediator in the truce talks. Attacking the mediator
is not only humiliating for the Egyptian government, but for the army and
Egyptian people as well.

Although Netanyahu has no strategy for the war itself, he has a strategy
for prolonging his own political survival. It is predicated on mixing the
political cards, ensuring chaos and carrying out constant massacres against
civilians, all safe in the knowledge that Washington will always remain on
his side no matter what. The Israeli leader is just buying time, though.
Israel’s top generals and military experts and analysts know that the war
has been lost and that prolonging it will not, in any way, alter its
predictable outcomes.

*-Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine Chronicle.
He is the author of five books. His latest is ‘These Chains Will Be Broken:
Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons’. Baroud is
a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global
Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC).*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20240605/347bcc73/attachment.htm>