If Israel invades, hell looms in Rafah

AS CEASEFIRE talks bog down in the Middle East, the threat is building of a new and devastating level of violence. On February 14th Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said he would not send a team to negotiate a truce in Gaza in exchange for the release of hostages by Hamas, citing the group’s “delusional demands”. Simultaneously fears have been rising for days of a massive Israeli army invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city that is hemmed along the border with Egypt, where 1m or more Palestinians are located. Any expansion of the fighting will probably have devastating consequences for civilians, detonate Israel’s relationship with Egypt and exhaust American patience. Yet Mr Netanyahu is intent on escalating, insisting that it may be necessary in order to achieve “total victory”.

Mr Netanyahu’s emphasis on Rafah is in part an attempt to boost his standing by promising Israelis a decisive result in the war. On February 12th the embattled prime minister was given a fillip when commandos rescued two hostages from the Al-Shabura neighbourhood in Rafah (diversionary bombardments killed 74 Palestinians). “Only continued military pressure…will bring about the relief of all our hostages,” he said afterwards. Yet the focus on Rafah is not just about Mr Netanyahu’s self-preservation. Within the Israeli security establishment there is an acknowledgment of the benefits of taking on Hamas there, in its last major stronghold, and of gaining control of the border with Egypt, the main channel for arms-smuggling.