In the course of his CNN interview last night, Joe Biden
said that Israeli forces “haven’t gone in Rafah yet”.
Since the operation was launched on Monday, Israeli troops
have taken control of a small chunk of the Rafah governorate, between two key
crossing points, Kerem Shalom (from Israel) and Rafah (from Egypt).
The area is largely unpopulated and was, for two hopeful
years at the end of the 1990s, the site of Gaza’s international airport
(destroyed by Israel in 2001, at the height of the second Palestinian
uprising).
In contrast to Israeli airstrikes on the city of Rafah,
which have claimed a number of lives since Monday, the ground operation does
not seem to have resulted in significant casualties.
Israeli forces were able
to reach the Rafah crossing within 24 hours, suggesting the fighting was far
from intense.
By not entering the heavily populated adjacent city,
Israel’s operation, which the government here describes as “limited”, does not
yet appear to have crossed Washington’s red lines.
President Biden’s explicit threat to withhold US weaponry is
designed to keep it that way.
US officials fear that an all-out offensive into Rafah,
where as many as 1.4 million Palestinians are sheltering, would result in a
bloodbath.
