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Netanyahu Sets Date for Rafah Offensive: ‘It Will Happen’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Feb. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that a date has been set for an Israeli military offensive in Rafah, the Hamas terror group’s last stronghold in Gaza.
“This victory [over Hamas] requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen — there is a date,” Netanyahu said in Jerusalem without revealing further details.
The United States has been pressuring Israel not to move forward with a full-scale military operation in the southern Gazan city, where more than a million Gazans are sheltering, expressing concern about the potential for high civilian casualties.
However, Netanyahu has reiterated that “we are determined to do this” regarding a Rafah offensive. Experts recently told The Algemeiner that Israel must operate in Rafah if it wishes to achieve its war objective of eliminating the threat posed by Hamas, which rules Gaza.
US and Israeli officials have been discussing potential options for targeting Hamas in Rafah, where Israel says the Palestinian terrorist group still has four battalions. According to reports, no action is planned until such discussion are concluded, and a potential operation is tied to the resolution of a hostage agreement.
Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks regarding a ceasefire in Gaza that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators, as well as America’s CIA Director William Burns.
“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,” Netanyahu said.
Hamas kidnapped 253 hostages and murdered more than 1,200 people during its Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, launching the current war. Israel responded with a military offensive aimed at freeing all the hostages and incapacitating Hamas to the point that it can longer pose a threat to the Israeli people from Gaza, the Palestinian enclave that borders Israel.
Over the past few months, Hamas has rejected all ceasefire offers, while Israel agreed to a deal that would end fighting for six weeks and release 700 Palestinian terrorists from jail, in exchange for 40 hostages seized during Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
Israel has said any truce must include the release of all remaining hostages and be temporary, warning that a long-term truce would allow Hamas to regroup and strengthen its position to continue attacking the Jewish state. Hamas leaders have pledged to carry out massacres against Israel like the one on Oct. 7 “again and again.”
Meanwhile, Hamas has demanded that any truce must include a permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
“There is no change in the position of the occupation [Israel] and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” an anonymous Hamas official told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”
Netanyahu’s latest comments about Rafah came amid rising tensions between Israel and its close ally the US over Gaza.
In a call with Netanyahu last week, US President Joe Biden issued his toughest public rebuke of Israel since its war against Hamas began in the fall, warning that US policy moving forward will be determined by whether Israel takes certain actions to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Other Biden administration similarly threatened to fundamentally change US policy toward Israel and Gaza.
US officials have responded positively to subsequent steps by Israel to increase what was already significant amounts of aid entering Gaza. However, Washington said more aid was needed.
Beyond Netanyahu, other Israeli officials have recently made clear that some kind of operation in Rafah will happen and is essential to achieving the Jewish state’s war aims.
“Hamas has ceased to function as a military organization in most parts of the Gaza Strip,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told an Israeli parliamentary committee last week.
“Their commanders are hiding in tunnels, they have lost command and control capabilities, [and] the battalion frameworks in most parts of the strip have ceased to function,” Gallant added in comments briefing members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on the war in Gaza. “The Hamas brigade in Rafah, however, is still standing, with its four battalions. We will address this soon.”
According to Gallant, continuing to apply military pressure on Hamas is the best way to ensure the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza amid ongoing negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar, and the US to reach a ceasefire agreement.
“Military pressure was and remains the main and most significant element in ensuring the return of the hostages,” he told Israeli lawmakers. “The advanced stage we have reached in dismantling Hamas and the information that we have gained from terrorists empower us at the negotiation table and enable us to make difficult decisions. I am committed to returning all the hostages to their homes.”
The post Netanyahu Sets Date for Rafah Offensive: ‘It Will Happen’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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