Biden offers Israel location of Hamas leaders and other perks if IDF stops Rafah op – report

The White House has been demanding for months that no major IDF operation be launched against Hamas in the city until a million civilians are moved out of harm’s way.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The U.S. is offering enticements to Israel that includes “sensitive intelligence,” to deter it from a major operation in Rafah, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

The secret information reportedly includes where Hamas leaders can be found in the Gaza Strip, and find even more terror tunnels than the IDF has already pinpointed, the paper said, citing four anonymous people who know about the proposition.

The Americans are also offering concrete help in building massive tent cities and providing delivery mechanisms of food, water and medicines for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians whom it demands that Israel remove from the incipient war zone in Hamas’ last stronghold in Gaza.

President Joe Biden has been adamant that the IDF conduct no mass invasion of the southern city until a million civilians who ran to Rafah after Israel started its military operations in the northern parts of Gaza are safely away.

Israel has yet to go in full force.

Last week, the IDF took over the Gazan border with Egypt in Rafah after ordering about 100,000 Palestinians to leave the eastern and southern-most portions of the city to safe areas it had set up near the coast and further north, near the city of Khan Yunis.

The air force rained down leaflets showing exactly where and how to go, called Gazans on their phones and broadcast the messages in Arabic before beginning its limited incursion.

The border is arguably the most important part of the city for Israel to control, as it is widely assumed that tunnels dug underneath it is the major way Hamas has managed to arm itself over the years with tens of thousands of weapons, including rifles and RPG’s, and innumerable bullets.

Israel has had a sea blockade on the coastal enclave for years, and tightly controls its own land borders with the Hamas-run enclave.

According to two unnamed sources who have knowledge of the discussions, the paper said, American officials are also currently helping Egypt locate and “cut off” smuggling tunnels in the Rafah region.

This is despite past Egyptian claims that it had destroyed all such underground passages, including by pumping some full of seawater.

The IDF will almost certainly start the same task now that it is ensconced there, if it has not begun already, in order to halt the arms flow that allows Hamas to continue fighting.

On Saturday, the IDF called for more Gazans to evacuate the central part of the city before it expands its Hamas-hunting activities.

This follows the army’s capture of the main road dividing Rafah’s eastern and western sections on Friday, effectively surrounding the eastern side.

So far, the IDF estimates that some 300,000 Gazans have fled Rafah towards the coastal safe area called Al-Mawasi, which has been equipped with shelter, food, water and field hospitals.

The White House has shown its displeasure with Israel’s move by delaying a shipment of bombs to the Jewish state. It has also been threatening to halt other weapons deliveries unless the humanitarian issue is resolved before the IDF launches a full-scale attack on Hamas in Rafah, which a vast majority of Israelis believes is necessary in order to fully destroy the terror organization’s military capabilities.