« on: March 20, 2024, 03:10:30 pm »
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-to-pitch-israel-on-securing-egypt-gaza-border-as-alternative-to-smashing-into-rafah/The US will present alternative plans for how Israel can continue pursuing Hamas without launching a major ground operation in Rafah during an upcoming meeting with a visiting Israeli delegation in Washington, two senior US officials told The Times of Israel on Tuesday.
“This isn’t just us saying, ‘No you can’t do it.’ We’re saying that we’re willing to work with you on viable alternatives that still help you achieve your objectives,” one of the senior US officials said, speaking to The Times of Israel on condition of anonymity.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan touched on this idea on Monday when he announced that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had accepted a request from US President Joe Biden during their phone call earlier that day to send an inter-agency team to Washington “to hear US concerns about Israel’s current Rafah planning and to lay out an alternative approach that would target key Hamas elements in Rafah and secure the Egypt-Gaza border, without a major ground invasion.”
Elaborating on the alternative approach the Biden administration has in mind, a second senior US official said Washington envisions Israel focusing instead on preventing the smuggling of weapons from Egypt into Gaza through the Philadelphi Corridor.
The official avoided blaming the Egyptian government for the smuggling that was partially responsible for Hamas’s re-armament amid successive rounds of conflict with Israel over the past 15 years. However, they said reaching a new arrangement with Cairo and building the necessary infrastructure to cut off the smuggling route would be more critical to the dismantlement of Hamas than a major ground offensive in Rafah.
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