Israel preparing for offensive into Rafah despite international opposition, AP explains

After withdrawing from Gaza’s second largest city, Israel says it’s now preparing to invade the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza. Israel long ago identified Rafa as a key target. This town, located on Egypt’s southern border, is known as the last place where Hamas has significant fighting forces, but Israel faces strong international opposition. That’s because an estimated one and a half million Palestinians are now huddled in Rafah. Most of these people have fled fighting elsewhere in Gaza, and they say they have nowhere else to go. But Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu says he remains committed to carrying out this operation. In fact, he says he’s already set a date. Israel also says it has ordered 40,000 tents to be distributed to people who are evacuated from Rafah ahead of the operation. Despite these threats, the invasion does not appear to be imminent. In fact, Netanyahu did not provide a firm date for when he plans on doing this. Much of this talk appears to be connected to ceasefire talks. Those talks have been going on for weeks and a new round of talks is going on in Cairo. At the same time, senior Israeli officials are also meeting to discuss the latest offers. The threat to move into Rafah could be seen as a way to put pressure by Israel to put pressure on Hamas to make concessions. Now these developments are happening as Palestinians in Gaza, like Muslims around the world, are celebrating the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Fitr. That’s the end of the Ramadan holy month. The mood in Gaza is very subdued. Most of the people, most of the population, are displaced. They’re dealing with a wartime situation. There are shortages of all sorts of key items and whatever is available is only available at highly inflated prices. So the mood right now sad and somber.