Israel’s Invasion of Rafah Is All but Inevitable, Experts Say

• Updates
• Photos
• Graduating Into War
• Where Israel’s Offensive Stands
• Roots of the Conflict

After weeks of delays, negotiations and distractions, Israel appeared to hint this week that its battle of Rafah — a metropolis teeming with displaced persons supra crushed and riddled with Hamas tunnels beneath — was each but inevitable.

In what immoderate analysts and residents of the metropolis saw arsenic a motion of preparations for an invasion, an Israeli subject authoritative connected Tuesday gave immoderate details that see relocating civilians to a harmless portion a fewer miles distant on the Mediterranean coast. Just a time earlier, Israeli warplanes bombed Rafah, expanding fears among immoderate of the civilians sheltering determination that a crushed battle would soon follow.

Such indicators that Israel whitethorn beryllium preparing an invasion, said Marwan Shaath, a 57-year-old nonmigratory of Rafah, “are terrifying and mean they whitethorn truly beryllium adjacent to starting an operation.” Mr. Shaath, who lives successful Gaza but is employed by Hamas’s Palestinian rivals successful the occupied West Bank, added, “Our bags person been packed for months present for the clip of the evacuation.”

Israel insists that a propulsion into Rafah is indispensable for achieving its goals of eliminating the militants sheltering successful a web of tunnels beneath the city, capturing oregon sidesplitting Hamas leaders presumed to beryllium determination and ensuring the merchandise of the remaining hostages captured during the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks connected Israel.