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 March 19.

“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 after successive wars 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.

“If Israel smashes into Rafah with all the civilian casualties that doing so would entail, cooperation from Egypt on locking down the [Philadelphi] Corridor will be much more difficult,” the second senior official said.

The first official clarified that US opposition to a major Rafah ground invasion doesn’t mean it opposes more targeted operations against Hamas’s leadership in Rafah or elsewhere and they said the alternative plans that the Biden administration intends to present to the visiting Israeli delegation will focus on this goal as well.

The US also envisions Israel using the coming period to implement a massive humanitarian surge, the US official said, speaking two days after the publication of a UN-backed report warning that famine is imminent in northern Gaza.