What’s happened: Israel is continuing its operations in Hamas’s last stronghold in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, and at a scale with which the Biden Administration, previously opposed to any operation there, is satisfied.

• Israeli media reports US officials saying that Israel has listened to US concerns and refined its plans accordingly.
• The IDF is reporting that almost a million of the estimated 1.4 million Gazans previously residing in the city have left for other parts of the Strip.
• According to Palestinian sources, the IDF this morning dropped flyers over Rafah announcing the expansion of safe zones to which displaced persons can move. Many residents have moved north to tent cities which have been erected in Khan Yunis and Al Mawasi.
• According to the IDF, in Rafah troops continue to “carry out targeted raids on the terrorist infrastructure and buildings from which Hamas terrorists fired at our forces. During this activity, the soldiers eliminated dozens of terrorists in eastern Rafah who tried to approach our forces.”
• IDF troops “carried out an operation to destroy terrorist infrastructure. During the operation, the soldiers searched a building and located many weapons including protective equipment, explosives, weapons, anti-tank missiles, equipment and tools intended for breaching fences.”
• “During searches in the area, the soldiers of the battalion located a tunnel shaft containing a weapons warehouse with short-range anti-tank missiles, grenades, weapons, and explosives. This warehouse was intended to be used to carry out terrorist attacks against our forces. The tunnel shaft and the weapons were destroyed.”
• On a visit to Jabaliya, a city in the northern Strip which the IDF had previously left but to which it has now returned, IDF Chief of Staff Halevi said “we are dismantling the military wing of Hamas. We want to bring our hostages home alive, and we want to bring those who, unfortunately, are no longer alive back for burial in Israel. These are very, very important missions. The message is that even if there was a place we didn’t reach last time, and now we are reaching it, no place, no matter how many explosives they put in the walls and how many shafts they booby-trapped, no place will withstand an offensive by an IDF combat team.”
• In Jabaliya, the IDF says that raids were carried out on terrorist infrastructure in the agricultural areas. “During the raids, the soldiers located many weapons including vests, an FN MAG machine gun, hand grenades, explosives, and intelligence materials. During extensive searches and guided by intelligence, the troops arrived at a mosque where they located missiles and rocket launchers, which were destroyed.”
• In Khan Yunis, the Israeli Air Force struck and killed Hamas terrorist Ahmed Yasser Alkara. Alkara took part in the October 7th Massacre in communities in southern Israel and was said by the IDF to be “a significant anti-tank missile operative who carried out attacks on IDF troops during the war.” The IDF says that this operation was delayed when a child was observed near Alkara’s position, and only resumed once the child had moved away.
• In another operation, says the IDF, “IAF fighter jets directed by intelligence eliminated five Hamas terrorists operating from inside the Faami Aljerjawi School in Daraj Tuffah in the northern Gaza Strip. Among the terrorists that were eliminated were Fadi Salim, Head of Propaganda in Hamas’ Gaza Brigade, as well as three Hamas intelligence operatives and an additional Nukhba terrorist.”
• Meanwhile, COGAT says that Israel’s facilitation of the entry of Humanitarian Aid into the Strip continues. The IDF says that 450 Humanitarian Aid trucks were transferred through the Kerem Shalom Crossing and the Erez West Crossing yesterday, with 650 truckloads waiting for collection and distribution by international aid agencies on the Gazan side of the crossings.

Context: The US had previously referred to an Israeli operation in Rafah as a “red line”. However, the thus far limited – what the IDF calls “precise” – operations in the city appear to have assuaged the Biden Administration’s concerns, to a degree.

• US reassessment is thought be based on the movement out of civilians and the increased flow of Humanitarian Aid.
• Israel continues to stress that victory in its war with Hamas depends upon defeating its remaining battalions in Rafah, capturing its senior leadership, and securing the border crossing to prevent the smuggling of weapons.
• A high priority also remains the recovery of the remaining hostages, many of whom are thought to be held in Rafah. The government’s hope remains that pressure exerted on Hamas by the Rafah operation also makes a hostage deal more likely.
• In order to achieve this, the IDF is currently deploying its highest number of troops across Gaza since January.
• Humanitarian agencies continue to warn of the critical shortage of aid reaching the Gaza population.
• The IDF cites failures within Gaza itself as being the cause. Aid, it says, is “awaiting distribution due to the lack of logistical capabilities and manpower gaps in the international aid agencies, leading to the accumulation of humanitarian aid at the crossings.”
• A senior White House official yesterday criticised Egypt for obstructions on its end. “We do not believe that aid should be held back for any reason whatsoever. Kerem Shalom is open. The Israelis have it open. And that aid should be going through Kerem Shalom,” they said.
• The Egyptians closed the crossing to aid earlier this month after Israel began operating in Rafah and assumed control of the Gazan side of the crossing.
• The Israeli government also says that Hamas is disrupting the effective distribution of aid, either siphoning supplies off for themselves or in one instance detaining and holding Jordanian trucks. In the absence of non-Hamas affiliated Palestinian partners, aid distribution challenges are likely to continue.
• Far-right members of the Israeli cabinet and Security Cabinet have made no secret of their desire to see Israeli civilian resettlement in Gaza.
• Any such move is forcefully opposed by more moderate government voices. Last week, Defence Minister Gallant attempted to rule out not only civilian resettlement, but any post-war Israeli administration of the Strip whatsoever.
• Gallant said he would not serve in a government which sought to impose Israeli rule and called on Netanyahu to move swiftly to a plan for a post-war Palestinian administration.

Looking ahead: Footage will be released later of the October 7^th kidnapping of five female IDF spotters from the Nahal Oz base. The families of all five have agreed to the screening.

• Prime Minister Netanyahu has ruled out Israeli resettlement of Gaza. Such a move was “never in the cards,” Netanyahu claimed to CNN, “and I said so openly. Some of my constituents are not happy about it, but that’s my position.”
• Instead, Netanyahu called for “sustained demilitarisation of Gaza,” “a civilian administration that is run by Gazans who are neither Hamas nor committed to our destruction,” and “a reconstruction of Gaza, if possible, done by the moderate Arab states and the international community.”
• The prime minister also once more moved to rule out the formal involvement of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the future governing force in the Strip. Despite others’ pushing for this, he said he would not allow an organisation to assume control which “still teaches its children to seek the destruction of Israel. That’s not my position. I want a different future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
• Despite US efforts, moves towards normalisation with Saudi Arabia appear to have stalled, with Netanyahu seemingly unwilling to meet Saudi demands over the creation of a Palestinian state.

What’s happened: The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) yesterday applied for an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant relating to alleged crimes committed in the prosecution of Israel’s war in Gaza.

• Karim Khan, the British prosecutor, accused the two Israelis of “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, [and] deliberately targeting civilians in conflict.”
• “We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population pursuant to State policy. These crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day.”
• Khan also issued warrants for Hamas’s two most senior Gazan leaders, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, and its foreign leader Ismail Haniyeh. The three are sought for overseeing extermination, murder, hostage-taking, rape, and sexual assault.
• “We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Israel by Hamas and other armed groups pursuant to organisational policies,” Khan said.
• Reaction from across the Israeli political spectrum was near-uniformly angry and incredulous.
• Netanyahu said: “The absurd and mendacious order by the prosecutor in The Hague isn’t directed only against the Israeli prime minister and the defence minister. It is directed against the State of Israel in its entirety… With what insolence do you dare to compare Hamas’s monsters with the soldiers of the IDF, the most moral army in the world?”
• War Cabinet Minister Gantz called Khan’s request “a crime of historic proportions.” “The State of Israel,” he said, “is waging one of the just wars fought in modern history following a reprehensible massacre perpetrated by terrorist Hamas on the 7th of October.”
• “While Israel fights with one of the strictest moral codes in history, while complying with international law and boasting a robust independent judiciary, drawing parallels between the leaders of a democratic country determined to defend itself from despicable terror to leaders of a bloodthirsty terror organisation is a deep distortion of justice and blatant moral bankruptcy.”
• Opposition Leader Lapid also condemned the decision, saying “it is not possible to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Sinwar and Deif. There is no such comparison, we cannot accept it and it is unforgivable,” he said, before calling the decision “a terrible political failure.”
• President Herzog said, “the announcement of the prosecutor at the ICC is beyond outrageous, and shows the extent to which the international judicial system is in danger of collapsing.”
• “Taken in bad faith, this one-sided move represents a unilateral political step that emboldens terrorists around the world, and violates all the basic rules of the court according to the principle of complementarity and other legal norms.”
• President Biden also responded angrily. “The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous,” he said. “And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence—none—between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”
• Secretary of State Blinken, similarly, said “we reject the prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas. It is shameful. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organisation that carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and is still holding dozens of innocent people hostage, including Americans.”
• Blinken added there were “deeply troubling process questions” surrounding the announcement. “Despite not being a member of the court, Israel was prepared to cooperate with the prosecutor. In fact, the prosecutor himself was scheduled to visit Israel as early as next week to discuss the investigation and hear from the Israeli government. The prosecutor’s staff was supposed to land in Israel today to coordinate the visit.”
• “Israel was informed that they did not board their flight around the same time that the prosecutor went on cable television to announce the charges. These and other circumstances call into question the legitimacy and credibility of this investigation.”
• Prime Minister Sunak’s office criticised the deicsion, while the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office also hit out at the warrants, saying “we don’t believe that seeking warrants will help get hostages out, get aid in, or deliver a sustainable ceasefire. This remains the UK’s priority… As we have said from the outset, we do not think the ICC has jurisdiction in this case.”
• Deputy foreign minister Andrew Mitchell told Parliament that “the fact that the prosecutor has applied for arrest warrants to be issued does not directly impact, for example, on UK licensing decisions, but we will continue to monitor developments.”
• The German and Czech governments also spoke out against the warrant requests.

Context: Israeli officials have never before been issued with warrants from the ICC. Similarly, experts noted that this was the first time in its 21 years that the Court has sought to indict “Western” leaders.

• Israel is not among the 124 state signatories to the Rome Statute, which outlines the ICC’s jurisdiction, and therefore its writ and jurisdiction do not run to Israel itself.
• Nor can Netanyahu or Gallant face arrest when travelling in other countries not subject to the writ of the ICC, such as the US. Many of Israel’s European allies, however, including the UK, are subject to the court’s authority, meaning that they could face arrest if travelling there.
• The UK has joined the US in rejecting the jurisdiction of the court to consider Israeli conduct in the war due to its not being a member.
• In his remarks, Blinken also argued that the move was premature, with the court supposed to intervene only when domestic courts have failed to do so. “The ICC was established by its state parties as a court of limited jurisdiction,” he said. “Those limits are rooted in principles of complementarity, which do not appear to have been applied here amid the prosecutor’s rush to seek these arrest warrants rather than allowing the Israeli legal system a full and timely opportunity to proceed.”
• “In other situations, the prosecutor deferred to national investigations and worked with states to allow them time to investigate. The prosecutor did not afford the same opportunity to Israel, which has ongoing investigations into allegations against its personnel.”
• One of the arguments made against last year’s government programme of judicial reform was that the strength of the Israeli system’s independence represented an important bulwark against the intervention of international courts.
• From Khan’s remarks when announcing the warrant applications, it seems that the alleged denial or hampering of Humanitarian Aid to Gaza would form a cornerstone of any case. He called on Israel to “immediately allow access to Humanitarian Aid in Gaza at scale.”
• Israel has long denied that it is a blockage to sufficient aid reaching Gaza, and that Hamas looting and international failure are the true cause of privation.
• Prior to his appointment as ICC prosecutor, Khan served as a defence attorney, representing clients including Liberian dictator Charles Taylor and the son of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
• Khan reportedly relied here upon expert advice from a panel of international legal experts, including American-Israeli scholar Theodor Meron, a Holocaust survivor who once served as legal counsel to Israel’s Foreign Ministry and as Israeli ambassador to Canada. The panel is said to have agreed with Khan’s view unanimously.
• Prior to October 7^th and the launching of Israel’s response in Gaza, the ICC was already investigating the conduct of both sides in 2014’s Israel-Hamas war (Operation Protective Edge).

Looking ahead: Khan’s warrants will now be considered by a three-judge ICC panel in ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I: Presiding Judge Iulia Motoc (Romania); Reine Alapini-Gansou (Benin) and Socorro Flores Liera (Mexico).

• It is rare for this pre-trial process to reverse the recommendation of the prosecutor. In only two of the 31 cases currently before the court has it failed to confirm warrants.
• In response to the announcement, the senior leadership of the National Security Council, the Justice Ministry, the chief military prosecutor and the Foreign Ministry all began deliberations on its impact and how to respond. Israeli officials will now decide whether or not to cooperate with the process.

What’s happened: The UK has announced that its first maritime aid delivery for the Gaza Strip has set sail from Larnaca, Cyprus.

• Comprising approximately 100 tones of shelter coverage kits for Gazan displaced persons, it will be delivered to the US-built temporary pier off the coast of Gaza City.
• Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “The UK has been working around the clock with our allies and partners to ensure more aid gets into Gaza via all possible routes – land, air and sea. We are leading international efforts with the US and Cyprus to establish a maritime aid corridor. Today’s first shipment of British aid from Cyprus to the temporary pier off Gaza is an important moment in increasing this flow.”
• The Royal Fleet Auxiliary’s vessel, Cardigan Bay, has supported the pier’s construction by housing hundreds of American soldiers and sailors who were involved in building it.
• First proposed in March, the US Navy and Army have now finished building a temporary pier which will facilitate the maritime delivery of Humanitarian Aid to the Gaza Strip. Initially, it will have the capacity to deliver 90 truckloads of aid a day, rising to 150. Aid agencies will oversee local distribution, and the US government has confirmed that none of its troops will be present in the Gaza Strip.
• The IDF confirmed its involvement in aiding in the pier’s construction, saying that “preparations were carried out over the last few weeks by the Engineering and Construction Department of the Ministry of Defense, the IDF, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories and in cooperation with the U.S. Military.”
• The new maritime delivery corridor will complement overland aid delivery efforts which remain critical. Israel continues to facilitate these efforts and has opened additional inspection routes in the West Bank to increase the rate at which aid trucks can be searched before travelling to the Gaza Strip.
• This week’s shipments contained tents for civilians temporarily evacuating from Rafah, 38 trucks of flour, and 76,000 litres of fuel.
• On Thursday, according to the IDF, “365 Humanitarian Aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom Crossing operated by the Ministry of Defence’s Land Crossings Authority, as well as the Erez Crossing, following thorough security checks.”
• Elsewhere, another overland crossing from Israel into the Gaza Strip has been opened at Zikim. It will primarily facilitate the entry of trucks carrying aid from Ashdod Port once they have undergone security checks on the Israeli side of the border.
• Further, according to the IDF, the Tarqumiyah and Beitunia crossings in The West Bank were opened “for the first time since the beginning of the war in order to expand the inspection routes of Humanitarian Aid trucks going to the Gaza Strip, as part of efforts to increase the rate of inspection of aid.”
• Far-right Israeli activists are continuing their efforts to disrupt the overland passage of aid through Israel into the Gaza Strip, especially in the West Bank. On Wednesday, it was reported that a commercial truck was mistakenly identified as being part of an aid convoy and attacked by extremist activists who were arrested at the scene. These efforts are being coordinated by a group called “Tzav 9”, and non-violent protestors continue to demonstrate against the delivery of aid to the Gaza Strip as long as Hamas still holds Israeli hostages.

Context: Israel is now fully engaged in facilitating aid to the civilian population, whilst determined in its continued fight against Hamas.

• At the first stage of the operation in Rafah, Israel sent messages encouraging the civilian population to move through the humanitarian corridor into safe zones.
• Prior to the operation, an estimated 1.4 million Palestinians were sheltering in Rafah, many of whom had fled fighting in the north and centre of the Gaza Strip. The IDF estimates that 700,000 Gazans have so far left through corridors.
• The UK sees itself as having played a critical role in facilitating the maritime corridor between Cyprus and the Gaza Strip, and will continue doing so as long it operates. It will also continue its efforts to “unlock more [land] routes to get vital aid in”.
• Israel has evacuated the eastern third of Rafah, and as these efforts expand to the rest of the city it is almost certain hundreds of thousands of its residents will travel north to tent cities which have been erected in Khan Yunis and Al Mawasi.
• Prior to the operation, Israel oversaw the construction of tens of thousands of temporary shelters. This latest UK shipment supports those efforts.
• While Israel continues to facilitate the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip, internal distribution challenges remain the primary obstacle to ensuring it reaches those in need.
• The Israeli government also claims that Hamas are disrupting the effective distribution of aid, either siphoning supplies off for themselves or in one instance detaining and holding Jordanian trucks. In the absence of non-Hamas affiliated Palestinian partners, aid distribution challenges are likely to continue.
• Although aid is meant to be distributed for free, according to veteran commentator Ehud Yaari, talking on Channel 12 News, Hamas has earned half a billion dollars from exploiting the aid since the beginning of the conflict.
• The resumption of commercial haulage to Gaza is significant. Limited commercial trucks, primarily Gazan businessmen, have only been recently reintroduced, stopped since October 7th. As of Wednesday, 52 had travelled into the Gaza Strip.

Looking ahead: The UK Government said its aid would be distributed in Gaza “as soon as feasible.”

• Sunak said of aid that “we know that more is required, particularly via land, which is why alongside intensive work to get hostages out of Gaza we will continue efforts to unlock more routes to get vital aid in – helping people in desperate need.”
• On an aerial tour of Gaza and in meetings with divisions active in Rafah yesterday, Prime Minister Netanyahu affirmed Israel’s commitment to continuing to operate in the city. “The battle in Rafah is critical,” he said. “It is not only the remaining battalions there but their escape and supply pipelines.”

Memorial Day: Today Israel remembers fallen IDF soldiers and victims of terror attacks.

• To date, 25,040 IDF soldiers have died in Israel’s wars.
• Since October 7th, 716 IDF soldiers and other security personnel have been killed in action. This total includes 8 soldiers killed in the last week.
• Since last Memorial Day, 834 civilians were murdered, bringing the total of Israeli civilians murdered in terror attacks to 5,100. Twelve Israeli civilians had been murdered since last Memorial Day prior to October 7th.
• This morning at 1100 local time, a two-minute memorial siren was heard across the country. The official state ceremony at Mount Herzl was attended by Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Yitzhak Herzog, Knesset Speaker Ohana and the heads of the security forces.

Gaza Strip: Since the weekend, the IDF has been operating across the Gaza Strip in the south, centre and north. The IDF says it has struck 150 targets across the Strip in the last day.

• On Sunday, the IDF expanded its precise operation against Hamas in Eastern Rafah. The IDF announced, “since the start of our precise operation against Hamas in Rafah we have eliminated dozens of terrorists, exposed underground terror tunnels and vast amounts of weapons. Prior to our operations we urge civilians to temporarily move towards humanitarian areas and move away from the crossfire that Hamas puts them in.”
• Four months after the IDF gained control over Jabalya, the second-largest city in the northern Gaza Strip, the IDF has returned after Hamas reconstituted its military position close to the Israeli border.
• As a clear sign of Hamas’s remaining capabilities, they have fired over 20 rockets in the last 24 hours aimed towards Sderot Ashkelon and Beer Sheva. Most were intercepted or landed in open areas, but one rocket directly struck a building in Ashkelon, slightly wounding three people and causing extensive damage to an apartment.
• At least five more rockets were fired from Rafah at the Humanitarian Aid crossing at Kerem Shalom, all of which were either intercepted or landed in open areas.
• The IDF has also been operating in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood. At the onset, the IDF called on the local population of more than 100,000 people to leave. This is because of the familiar Hamas approach of embedding themselves within the civilian population, where they had renewed their military control.

Humanitarian assistance: On Sunday, the IDF announced the opening of the ‘Western Erez’ Crossing in the northern Gaza strip, emphasising it was done in coordination with the US government.

• The ID noted this crossing “is part of the effort to increase aid routes to the Gaza Strip, and to the northern Gaza Strip in particular… Dozens of trucks of flour were coordinated from the Port of Ashdod on behalf of the World Food Programme organisation after undergoing security checks.”
• Ahead of the (so far) limited operation in Rafah, Israel facilitated the entry of tens of thousands of tents provided by the UAE and others for Palestinians leaving Rafah towards Khan Yunis.
• On Friday, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) announced the transfer of 200,000 litres of fuel, “transferred to address the ongoing and essential requirements of the international community, including hospitals, humanitarian areas, logistical centres and the distribution of Humanitarian Aid.”
• On Saturday, a new field hospital was set up in central Gaza. According to the IDF, “the establishment of the hospital was coordinated and enabled through the entry of medical workers and medical equipment, including medicines, beds, food, water, tents, first aid equipment, ventilators, and materials for the construction of the field hospital… The field hospital will be operated by 150 international medical aid workers, and its dozens of beds can be used for emergency and routine medical treatment.”
• The IDF noted, “the hospital joins seven other field hospitals that have been established in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war. It is located in the area of Deir al-Balah, which serves to provide Humanitarian Aid to the Gazan residents temporarily evacuated from the eastern Rafah area. As part of the humanitarian measures to facilitate the temporary evacuation of civilians from the eastern Rafah area, some of the existing field hospitals were transferred to the expanded Humanitarian Area in Al-Mawasi in coordination with the international community, where there is an increased supply of tents, food, water, and medicine.”

Cameron rejects arms embargo: while reiterating the UK’s opposition to the operation in Rafah, Foreign Secretary Cameron yesterday told Sky News that a UK arms embargo would “strengthen Hamas”.

• Comparing the UK’s minor role as a weapons supplier to Israel with that of the US, Cameron said: “The United States is a massive bulk state supplier of weapons to Israel… The UK provides less than 1 percent of Israel’s weapons and is not a state supplier. We have a licensing system and those licences can be closed if it’s judged there’s a serious risk of a serious international human rights violation.”
• He reminded viewers that the last time there had been pressure on the UK Government to consider an embargo, “a few days later there was a massive Iranian attack on Israel, including 140 cruise missiles. So I don’t think it would have been a wise path.”
• “If I announced that today,” he continued, “it might help me get through this television interview, but actually it would strengthen Hamas. It would weaken Israel.”

Context: The mood in Israel is particularly sombre today as Israel marks the traditional annual Memorial Day, whilst still in active combat across Gaza and in the north and with 132 hostages having remained in Hamas captivity for 219 days.

• In the north, two IDF reservists were killed by a kamikaze drone strike at an army position near Metula last week, while a third was killed in a separate attack. The IDF responded with airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon,
• In Gaza, a disturbing pattern has repeated itself: once the IDF leaves a combat zone, Hamas fighters have been able to return, regroup and reestablish control.
• This is placing extra pressure on the political leadership to decide who will manage Gaza ‘the day after’.
• Yossi Yehoshua, in Yediot Ahronot, spelt out the concern, writing “military officials have said that a decision has to be made about the regime that will take the reins in Gaza in the future. Security  officials have said that no one wants Hamas. As such, the options remaining are either the Palestinian Authority or moderate forces in the Gaza Strip that enjoy the support of Arab countries. The third option, one of an Israeli military administration, is untenable…”
• Meanwhile, efforts are still underway to reach an agreement for the release of hostages and a ceasefire. Despite hopes that Hamas had ‘agreed’, significant gaps remain:
  • Hamas cannot guarantee how many of the 33 female soldiers, sick and elderly are still alive.
  • Hamas refusing Israel’s insistence to have a veto over certain heavyweight terrorists that will be released in exchange.
  • The sequencing of the deal: how may hostages will be released after how many days.
  • Hamas are also seeking a longer pause: 12 weeks as opposed to 6 in an effort to end the fighting completely – something Israel will only consider for the release of all the hostages.
• Hamas continues its psychological warfare, releasing another hostage video, the third in a month.
• In Rafah, Israel is thus far limiting its operations to pinpoint missions. Concern for the safety of any hostages being held in Rafah, along with the over one million civilians, is allied to a desire to reduce tensions with Egypt which have been inflamed over Cairo’s opposition to any operation in Rafah.

Looking ahead: One of Israel’s most immediate diplomatic priorities will be maintaining ties with Cairo and securing Egyptian cooperation for ongoing operations in Rafah and elsewhere in the Gaza Strip.

• There will likely be diplomatic fallout from Cairo’s decision to support South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ (see Israeli Media Summary below).
• Egypt’s opposition to an operation in Rafah, like that of other Arab states, has implications for the Arab world’s involvement in the ‘day after’ in Gaza and will require delicate handling

What’s happened: As Israel seeks to ascertain whether Hamas is serious about a hostage deal, troops have continued to carry out focused operations against Hamas targets in eastern Rafah.

• In a statement the IDF said that “in the context of the operations, the troops gained operational control over the Gazan side of the Rafah border crossing in response to intelligence about the use made by terrorists of the crossing for terrorist purposes.”
• Defence Minister Gallant said, “The operation in Rafah will not stop until Hamas is eliminated, or until the first hostage returns to Israel.” Minister Benny Gantz said that “at any stage where we can reach a plan for the return of our hostages, we will do so.”
• An Israeli delegation arrived in Cairo to continue talks towards an agreement for a cease-fire. Also in Cairo are delegations from the US, Qatar and Hamas.
• In a statement, PM Netanyahu claimed Hamas’ ceasefire proposal was “intended to torpedo the entry of our forces into Rafah.” Netanyahu added that the purpose of the Rafah operation is to bring back the hostages and eliminate Hamas. Israel has “already proved in the previous hostage release [that] military pressure on Hamas is a precondition for the return of the hostages.”
• The Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and Gaza reopened to Humanitarian Aid this morning. The crossing had been closed since Sunday, when a nearby rocket attack killed four Israeli soldiers.
• A senior US official confirmed that last week the US delayed a shipment of two kinds of bombs to Israel because of its opposition to a major ground operation in Rafah and the concern about the destruction that heavy bombs might cause in a dense urban area.
• The IDF intercepted a suspicious aircraft from the east near Eilat last night with the target intercepted outside of Israel’s borders. Pro-Iranian militias in Iraq announced that they had launched a UAV at Eilat.
• Also yesterday US Central Command said that Houthis launched three drones from Yemen over the Gulf of Aden, and that a coalition ship successfully intercepted two of them and the third crashing in the Gulf of Aden.  An anti-ship ballistic missile was later launched over the same area, and no injuries or damage was reported.

Context: Four of Hamas’ remaining battalions are located in Rafah, while the border – referred to as the Philadelphia Corridor – is considered essential to prevent weapons smuggling and future rearmament by Hamas.

• Israel has reportedly committed to the US and Egypt to restrict its operation in Rafah, aiming only to deny Hamas authority over the border crossing – located approximately 2 miles from the city of Rafah – and concentrating on the eastern side of the city.
• Significant differences exist between Israel’s latest negotiation line – described by the US as ‘extremely generous’ – and Hamas’ announced proposal. These include:
  • The contours of the three-phase deal put forward by Israel required the release (within the first 42-days), of 33 living hostages – women, children, elderly or sick. Hamas has said it can only guarantee it has 20 live hostages from among that group and proposes to release 33 hostages, alive or dead.
  • Hamas’ proposal suggests three hostages to be released every seven days rather than three hostages every three days.
  • Hamas want to increased the number of security prisoners to be freed by Israel in exchange for each hostage in the first phase and sought to remove the veto Israel demanded on the release of certain Palestinian security prisoners.
  • The Hamas proposal allows for the return of Gazans back north without security checks required by Israel and changes some specifics on the withdrawal of Israeli troops.

• Israel’s delegation is comprised of lower level officials with a limited mandate to determine whether Hamas’s proposal is a ruse, a proposal that was put forward only in hope of placing the onus on Israel, or whether it was a proposal that might allow for progress to be made towards an agreement.
• White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby indicated that the proposal should be viewed as a counterproposal.

Looking ahead: CIA Director William Burns, who held talks in Qatar and in Cairo, will arrive in Israel today and meet with Netanyahu and other senior officials.

• An Israeli official told Kan Radio last night that if there was no change in the approach taken by the mediators and in Hamas’s position, the operation in Rafah would be expanded.
• Israel reportedly intends to involve Palestinians who are not connected to Hamas in administering the Rafah crossing with the goal to have better supervision and monitoring of the aid at the crossing, through which weapons have also passed