Biden administration officials are said to be offering Israel the exact location of Hamas leaders in a bid to stop the IDF invasion of the Gaza city of Rafah.
The president has reportedly offered highly classified information that also includes the location of secret Hamas tunnels to try to prevent what he fears could be a humanitarian catastrophe.
The detailed and delicate conversations serve to illustrate what is at stake between Israel and the United States. Rafah is the last city in Gaza that has not been bombed by Israel.
According to the Washington PostThe United States also proposes to assist in the construction of thousands of shelters to create tent cities and to assist with the establishment of delivery systems for vital supplies such as food, water and medicine.
The Biden administration is said to be working frantically behind the scenes in an attempt to prevent a large-scale Israeli incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, pictured on Saturday.
The Biden Administration is said to be offering Israel substantial support, including top-secret intelligence that would help Israeli forces identify the exact location of Hamas leaders along with the terrorist group’s hidden tunnels.
This support will help ensure that 1.3 Palestinians who fled and were already evacuated from other parts of Gaza under Israeli orders and are now taking refuge in Rafah have access to habitable conditions, rather than being exposed to further hardship.
Israel has promised an invasion using “extreme force,” something of particular concern to the Biden administration, especially given the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. The current goal is essentially to prevent unnecessary destruction and minimize harm to civilians.
Israel says it must go to Rafah to complete the task of eliminating Hamas.
But this is easier said than done, as destroying the city’s extensive network of underground tunnels, where many Hamas fighters and leaders are based, would endanger the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.
“We have serious concerns about how Israel has carried out this campaign, and all of that could come to a head in Rafah,” a senior administration official said.
US officials, including experts from agencies such as the US Agency for International Development (USAID), have engaged in detailed discussions with their Israeli counterparts on how to implement a humanitarian plan effectively.
For the past seven weeks, President Biden and his team have been making offers hoping to convince Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pictured, and the Israeli military to carry out a more targeted and limited operation in the city.
Smoke rises after Israeli airstrike near the separation wall between Egypt and Rafah
A street in Rafah is almost deserted as the Israeli military extended an evacuation order for the eastern parts of the southern Gaza city.
It includes considerations such as the number of shelters that would be needed and the amount of water needed for specific areas, with suggestions that their installation would take several months, although Israel does not agree with such calculations.
Biden’s advisers have informed their Israeli counterparts that Palestinians cannot simply be moved to arid or bombed-out areas of Gaza and that Israel needs to provide basic infrastructure along with shelter, food, water, medicine and other necessities.
“The humanitarian community in general is very skeptical that there is any safe way to resettle people out of Rafah,” Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International, told The charge.
“I have been very concerned about the United States’ position on this, that the position has not been: ‘End the war and do not enter Rafah.'” “The line has been to find a way to evacuate people safely, and that assumes it’s possible,” Konyndyk said.
The United States has also been working closely with Egypt to address the issue of tunnels across the border between Egypt and Gaza, which Hamas has used in the past to transfer weapons and replenish its military supplies.
While Israel has already launched attacks on Rafah, it has not yet launched a full-scale ground invasion of Rafah, but the United States is said to be concerned by recent actions including the seizure of a border crossing and ordering evacuations that suggest a land area. The offensive is not far away.
Internally displaced Palestinians arrive in Khan Younis after leaving Rafah following an evacuation order issued by the Israeli army.
More than 34,900 Palestinians and more than 1,455 Israelis have been killed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry and the IDF, since Hamas militants launched their attack in October.
An elderly woman and a child wait with their belongings before evacuating from Rafah, following an order from the Israeli army.
Israel has given assurances that 800,000 Palestinians will be evacuated from the area before any incursion into Rafah begins.
Aid agencies say there is nowhere left for previously evacuated Gazans to move, as Egypt refuses to open its borders.
Other parts of Gaza have been reduced to rubble due to collapsing infrastructure and hospitals that no longer function.
The Biden administration had previously signaled that further escalation, especially actions targeting densely populated areas, could have consequences, including withholding certain arms shipments if the country goes ahead with an invasion of Rafah.
Biden has said Israel has not yet crossed its “red line” as forces have not begun a ground invasion or bombing of Rafah.
The administration has also calculated that Hamas would welcome a major battle in Rafah, particularly one that inflicts maximum death and destruction to further isolate Israel.
Netanyahu has vowed to enter Rafah with “extreme force,” while Biden wants any operation to be targeted. In the photo, displaced Palestinians are seen arriving in Khan Younis.
A makeshift tent camp in Rafah. The United States has promised to help build more
Displaced Palestinians arrive at a makeshift camp west of Rafah
It is still unclear whether Israel will heed warnings offered by the United States not to launch a large-scale ground invasion, as tension has been rising between Biden and Netanyahu over the past week.
Days ago, the Biden administration stopped shipping 2,000-pound bombs over fears they could be used in an operation in Rafah.
‘In reality, restricting further arms deliveries is a step the Biden administration would probably prefer not to take. As a result of that, they are likely to keep the definition of the red line flexible, so that they can decide, based on all the circumstances, whether Israel has crossed it or not,” Frank Lowenstein, a former State Department official, told Washington. Post.
“It seems like the brightest part of that pink line would be the mass civilian casualty events in Rafah and the large-scale armored raids on the city.”
The situation remains fluid and diplomatic efforts are underway to find a peaceful solution and prevent further escalation of violence and humanitarian crises.