How a full-scale assault on Rafah would play out

Ramadan begins on 10 March. That gives Israel two weeks to move civilians out of harm’s way as it prepares its assault on Rafah. Two weeks for Egypt to build a temporary refugee camp just across the border from Gaza. Two weeks to find a way to break the deadlock on negotiations for a ceasefire. 

This week, Israeli War Cabinet member Benny Gantz gave the start of Ramadan as the deadline for Hamas to release the 130 hostages still held in Gaza or face an assault on the last city it still holds. Between now and then, Israel needs to find a way to get most of the 1.5 million Palestinians estimated to be sheltering there to a form of safety, whilst screening them for Hamas fighters who may be trying to escape.

The Israelis can only escort them north and northwest away from Rafah which borders Egypt at the southern edge of Gaza. However, if fighting begins before the evacuation, and hundreds of thousands are still in the city, some will head south and try and force their way across the Egyptian border. Hence the Egyptian contingency plans.

The semi-urban sprawl of Rafah ( with a usual population of 250k) spreads westwards almost to the Mediterranean Sea. About a kilometre north, up the coastal Al-Rashid road, is the Al-Mawasi area. This is already thronged with people displaced from Gaza City and Khan Yunis but could be further utilized. A couple of kilometres north of Al-Mawasi, and a kilometre inland, is a water park which sits next to the single-lane Gush Kashtif road. This has open scrubland around it on the flat land on which all of Gaza sits. A series of tent cities along this stretch is one of the plans the Israelis are working on. However, aid agencies are concerned that basic facilities are nowhere near at the levels required to accommodate hundreds of thousands of displaced people. The Israelis are also looking at building a floating jetty to enable aid ships to deliver supplies.

The IDF may also seek to move some people north up the two-lane Salah-al-Deen road which runs south to north along almost the entire length of the strip. On all routes, the IDF will be screening those moving to find Hamas fighters in civilian clothes. The Israelis have facial recognition technology and equipment to detect traces of explosives.

Israel claims it has “dismantled” 18 of 24 Hamas battalions, each consisting of roughly 1,500 men. If correct that leaves about 9,000 fighters, most of whom will be in Rafah along with the senior echelons of the movement, including its military chief in Gaza – Yehya Sinwar. The IDF estimates it has killed 12,000 Hamas men, a source in Qatar told Reuters the figure was closer to 6,000.

Either way, the walls are closing in on the survivors, including the walls of the tunnels Sinwar is thought to be hiding in. If the Israeli forces move in, the fighting is likely to be different to that in Gaza City and Khan Yunis. They are densely packed with high-rise apartment blocks whereas buildings in Rafah tend to have fewer than five storeys. This lowers a sniper’s field of view meaning the attackers can move about more easily. It also means buildings can be searched more quickly using fewer soldiers. If, and it’s a big if, the fighting there begins in earnest on the tenth, major combat operations could be over within a month.

Rafah is pressed hard up against the Egyptian border. Some civilians, and Hamas members, may try to cross to safety. However, President El-Sisi and his government loathe Hamas and privately blame it for the current crisis. It wants neither tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees on its territory, nor potentially thousands of Hamas gunmen. In 2015, Egypt destroyed hundreds of Hamas tunnels running along the border. Some were blown up, others flooded with sea water. In the same year, it dug a 10-metre deep/20-metre wide ditch at the Rafah crossing point to help secure the buffer zone it has established with Gaza.

Since the start of the war, Cairo has consistently said it will not open its borders to refugees. However, the threat of an assault on Rafah seems to have forced it to take precautionary measures. Satellite images taken by Maxar appear to show the construction of an enclosure of roughly 8 sq miles with 7-metre-high walls in the desert close to the Rafah crossing. The area could theoretically house 100,000 people. Egypt has also moved an extra 40 tanks and armoured vehicles to near the frontier. In 2008, after a Hamas explosion damaged the border wall, tens of thousands of Palestinians flooded through the gap in a matter of hours.

Some commentators suggest Israel wants to forcefully move Palestinians into Egypt. This is highly unlikely. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant insists that “The State of Israel has no intention of evacuating Palestinian civilians to Egypt”. Indeed, it does not, and even if it did want to, it would be unlikely to happen. Doing so would be a serious breach of the Egypt/Israeli peace agreement, the Americans have told them in no uncertain terms not to do it, and the Israelis know that they cannot be seen to be launching a new “Nakba” (catastrophe), as the Palestinians call the events of 1948, when some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes during the Arab/Israeli war.

So, forced movement into Egypt? Highly unlikely. An assault during Ramadan? Possible. If it happens there is likely to be uproar around the Middle East, especially in the West Bank. The Islamic holy month, a time of communal fasting and prayer, is always a time of intense emotions. This century, until the last few years, it also saw an increase in terror activity in many countries. An assault on Rafah next month could tip some people over the edge.

 Current ceasefire negotiations are at an impasse. The Americans have proposed a new UN Security Council resolution which, for the first time in a U.S. draft, includes the word “ceasefire”. However, it’s a ‘temporary ceasefire” and says, “as soon as practical, based on the formula of all hostages being released”. Concerning Rafah, it says “such a major offensive should not proceed under the current circumstances’”.

So – a shot across Israel’s bows that it hasn’t got forever, and a sharp reminder to get a credible plan in place before going into the last redoubt of Hamas and finishing off the leadership. Time is short on all sides.

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