Biden administration officials are said to be offering Israel exact locations of Hamas leaders in a bid to stop the IDF invading the Gazan city of Rafah.
The president has reportedly offered highly-classified information that also includes the locations of Hamas’ secret tunnels to try and stave-off what he fears could be a humanitarian catastrophe.
The detailed and sensitive talks serve to illustrate the stakes facing Israel and the U.S. Rafah is the last city in Gaza that has not been bombed by Israel.
According to the Washington Post, the U.S. is also proposing to assist in the construction of thousands of shelters to create tent cities and help with the setting up of delivery systems for vital supplies like food, water, and medicine.
The Biden administration is said to be working furiously behind the scenes in an attempt to stave of a full 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 information that would help Israeli forces pinpoint the exact location of Hamas leaders together with the terror group’s hidden tunnels
This support will help ensure that 1.3 Palestinians that fled and were already evacuated from other parts of Gaza under Israeli orders and now sheltering in Rafah have access to livable conditions, rather than being exposed to further hardship.
Israel has promised an invasion using ‘extreme force’ – something the Biden administration is particularly concerned about, particularly given the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. The current goal is to essentially prevent unnecessary destruction and minimize harm to civilians.
Israeli says it must go into Rafah in order to complete the job of wiping out Hamas.
But the job is easier said than done as destroying city’s extensive underground tunnel network 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 prosecuted this campaign, and that could all come to a head in Rafah,’ a senior administration official said.
U.S. officials, including experts from agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), have been involved in detailed discussions with Israeli counterparts on how to implement a humanitarian plan effectively.
Over the last 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 pursue a more targeted and limited operation in the city
Smoke rises after an Israeli air strike near the separating wall between Egypt and Rafah
A street in Rafah is nearly deserted, as Israel’s military expanded an evacuation order for eastern areas of the southern Gaza city
It includes considerations such as the number of shelters that would be needed and the amount of water required for specific areas with suggestions it would take several months to set up – although Israel disagrees with such calculations.
Biden aides are have imparted to their Israeli counterparts that Palestinians are unable to just be moved to barren or bombarded parts of Gaza and that Israel needs to provide basic infrastructure together with shelter, food, water, medicine and other necessities.
‘The aid community generally is very skeptical there’s any safe way to relocate people out of Rafah,’ said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International to The Post.
‘I’ve been really concerned about the U.S. line on this — that the line has not been, ‘End the war and don’t go into Rafah.’ The line has been to find a way to safely evacuate people, and that presumes that’s a possible thing,’ Konyndyk said.
The U.S. is also been working closely with Egypt to address the issue of tunnels that cross the Egypt-Gaza border, which Hamas has used in the past to transfer weapons across and to replenish its military supplies.
While Israel has already launched strikes on Rafah, it has not yet launched a full-scale ground invasion of Rafah, but the U.S. is said to have become concerned by recent actions including the seizing of a border crossing and the ordering of evacuations suggesting a ground offensive is not far off.
Internally displaced Palestinians arrive to Khan Younis after leaving Rafah following an evacuation order issued by the Israeli army
More than 34,900 Palestinians and over 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 child wait with belongings before evacuating from Rafah, following an order from the Israeli military
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 Gaza citizens to move to, given that Egypt refuses to open its borders.
Other parts of Gaza have been reduced to rubble with the collapse of infrastructure and hospitals no longer functioning.
The Biden administration had earlier signaled that further escalation, especially actions targeting densely populated areas, could lead to consequences, including the withholding certain weapons shipments if the country moves ahead with a Rafah invasion.
Biden has said Israel has not yet crossed his ‘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 in order to further isolate Israel.
Netanyahu has promised to enter Rafah with ‘extreme force,’ while Biden wants any operation to be targeted. Pictured, displaced Palestinians are seen arriving in Khan Younis
A makeshift tent camp in Rafah. The U.S. has promised to assist in erecting more
Displaced Palestinians arrive at a makeshift tent camp west of Rafah
It is still unclear whether Israel will listen to warnings offered by the U.S. not to launch a full-scale ground invasion as tension has been building between Biden and Netanyahu over the last week.
Days ago, the Biden administration paused the shipment of 2,000-pound bombs over fears they might be used in an operation in Rafah.
‘Actually restricting more weapons deliveries is a step the Biden administration would probably prefer not to take. As a result of that, they’re likely to keep the definition of the red line flexible, so they can decide based on the entirety of the circumstances whether Israel has crossed it or not,’ said Frank Lowenstein, a former State Department official, to the Washington Post.
‘It seems like the brightest part of that pink line would be mass casualty events for civilians in Rafah and large-scale armored incursions into the city.’
The situation remains fluid, with ongoing diplomatic efforts aimed at finding a peaceful resolution and avoiding further escalation of violence and humanitarian crises.