Israel Wants to Go Into Rafah. It Could Go Badly.

TEL AVIV—Israel has said repeatedly it needs to attack the Gaza Strip city of Rafah to wipe out the last organized battalions of the militant group Hamas. It could be its riskiest operation yet.

Its military will somehow have to thread the needle between not doing so much damage that it inflames international outrage, further impairs its crucial relationship with the U.S. and kills some of the Israeli hostages believed to be held there, while not going in so softly that it fails to rout Hamas and puts its own soldiers at risk. The broader effort to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia in hopes of realigning the balance in the Middle East is in the equation as well.

Tamir Hayman, executive director of the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, sees the benefits of destroying Hamas’s presence in Rafah. Israel needs to seal the border with Egypt by destroying the underground tunnels it says have allowed Hamas to smuggle in weapons. In addition, if left alone there, Hamas could rebuild its military capabilities and again pose the threat of an operation like the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that left 1,200 dead and 240 as hostages.

“It will be the route from which it is possible Hamas will try to regain its military capability in the rest of the Gaza Strip,” Hayman said.

And yet, he doesn’t think the tactical benefits would outweigh the costs, especially with an opportunity to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia and build a regional partnership that could act as a counterweight to Iran on the line.

“The benefits are very few, especially if you compare it to the negative effects,” Hayman said.

The question of whether to go into Rafah is sharpening as talks for a possible cease-fire deal to free Israeli hostages enter a crucial phase. Negotiators are gathering in Cairo this weekend under heavy pressure from the U.S. to hammer out an agreement. Hamas’s Gaza chief, Yahya Sinwar, sent word that the current proposal is the closest yet to the group’s demands but raised a number of caveats, Arab mediators said.

While agreement has been reached on many details, the main sticking point remains balancing Hamas’s goal of a path to a permanent cease-fire with Israel’s insistence it retain the right to fight on, including in Rafah if necessary.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to go into Rafah if a deal doesn’t happen. But he has also said an invasion would happen with or without a deal. Forgoing a Rafah operation could threaten his immediate political survival. He has repeatedly touted it as the only way to achieve victory in the war, and ultranationalist members of his governing coalition are urging him to do it.

Taking Rafah could allow him to declare total victory—that Israel has met his goal of destroying Hamas—a win he will need when he faces new elections.

The international political costs, however, could be high. After seven months of war, the world’s sympathy over the Oct. 7 attack has waned. In its place is a growing frustration over the Palestinian death toll, which now stands at over 34,000 people, according to Palestinian health officials, whose numbers don’t specify how many were combatants.

The U.S. has warned Israel against any invasion of Rafah without a realistic plan to move civilians out of harm’s way. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the U.S. still hasn’t seen such a plan and is pressing Israel not to proceed.

The Biden administration has been reluctant to impose consequences on Israel, like withholding military aid, or a veto at the United Nations. A Rafah operation without U.S. approval could force the administration’s hand.

Israel’s relationship with Egypt, already strained, could be further harmed as well.

Rafah, at the far southern end of Gaza, is home to the Philadelphi Corridor, a roughly 9-mile long buffer between the enclave and Egypt. Israel says it holds a vast tunnel network that has allowed Hamas to smuggle weapons and other illicit goods into the enclave for years. Fighting in the area, with Egyptian troops stationed nearby, would be complex.

Fighting around a hemmed-in civilian population, meanwhile, could cause a mass influx of Palestinians into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. A worst-case scenario could threaten the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries.

A deal for normalization with Saudi Arabia—which the Biden administration has been pushing as part of a comprehensive deal to end the war and rebuild Gaza—could be off the table, at least in the near-term. An operation might also mean Israel could lose out on an opportunity to get Arab partners like the United Arab Emirates to pump money into Gaza and help it rebuild.

Any plan to proceed in Rafah would require heavy coordination with the U.S. and Egypt—something neither appears close to approving. It is also unclear whether the monumental task of moving so many people out of harm’s way to someplace with shelter, water and food is realistic.

High civilian casualties would only worsen Israel’s looming status as an international pariah. Israel already is concerned the International Criminal Court could issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials. A Rafah operation that kills thousands of Palestinians could help bolster the case.

“The world is done with large numbers of dead Palestinians,” said Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Washington-based Arab Gulf States Institute. “Israel does not have leeway.”

The task would be militarily complicated as well. The Rafah challenge has plagued Israel all along: fighting in dense, urban territory where Hamas has a vast tunnel network and is deeply embedded in civilian infrastructure.

Four Hamas battalions remain in Rafah, along with thousands of other fighters who have fled from northern and central Gaza as the Israeli army plowed through the Gaza Strip. They are hiding in a city swollen with more than a million Palestinians sheltering in the area.

“It’s a microcosm of every challenge, every risk and every complication that has played out in this war,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “You’d have to think very carefully about what you are going to risk for what you are going to gain.”

Some analysts think the longer Israel waits to enter Rafah, the better prepared Hamas will be. Delay gives Hamas time to rebuild, regroup and booby-trap the area, leading to more deaths on the Israeli side when the military goes in.

“I think it’s a very important target, and it’s urgent,” said Yaakov Amidror, former Israeli national security adviser and a fellow at the Washington-based Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a think tank that advocates for military cooperation between Israel and the U.S. The risk of losing out on Saudi normalization is minor compared with the existential threat posed by Hamas, he said.

Tactically, a Rafah operation would need to be different from Israel’s offensives in Gaza City and Khan Younis, the Gaza Strip’s two other main cities. In Gaza City, Israel relied heavily on a punishing air campaign to destroy Hamas’s battalions in the city—a way to protect the lives of Israeli soldiers but at the cost of many civilian casualties.

Israel aimed to be more targeted as it moved south into Khan Younis. It still left the city largely destroyed.

Military analysts believe a Rafah operation would have to be the Israeli army’s most targeted yet due to the presence of so many civilians, the intense international pressure and the risk of killing hostages.

But even a best-case scenario would be ugly.

“It cannot be a smooth, neat and ‘clean’ operation,” said Ehud Yaari, an Israeli journalist and fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a D.C.-based think tank. “Whatever precautions you take, civilians will be hurt.”

Anat Peled contributed to this article.

Write to Shayndi Raice at [email protected]