According to a Channel 12 news report on Friday evening, the prime minister recently told the small war cabinet that the operation in Gaza’s southernmost city, where more than half of the coastal enclave’s 2.3 million residents are sheltering, will need to be completed before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins around March 10.
The assessment was reportedly made during a discussion about the pending Rafah operation, during which IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi told Netanyahu that the Israel Defense Forces was ready to operate, but that it needed the government to first decide what it wanted to do with the displaced Gazans sheltering there.
The report came as US President Joe Biden was coming under growing domestic pressure to push Israel on a ceasefire in its war with Hamas, now in its fourth month, though he and other US officials have continued to stand behind Israel’s right to defend itself against the terror group.
However, the US has expressed increasing concern over the civilian death toll, suffering and humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, and the lack of clarity from Israel regarding the “day after” in Gaza. READ MORE
