Shira Efron

Sixteen months after the Oct. 7 massacre, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has concluded his official visit to Washington a victor.

The Israeli leader — who spent years actively strengthening Hamas’s rule in Gaza and bears deep responsibility for the events leading up to the worst disaster in modern Jewish history since the Holocaust — received royal treatment as the first foreign leader to visit the White House in President Trump’s second term. And while the immediate impact of the visit on key issues — the hostage and cease-fire agreement, Iran’s nuclear threat and U.S. military assistance to Israel — is yet to be seen, one outcome is already crystal clear.…  Seguir leyendo »

Three days after it began, Israel’s operation in Rafah looks like a microcosm of its seven-month-long fight in Gaza: an attempt to check a tactical box rather than a strategic move with a definitive goal in the fight against Hamas.

As a limited incursion, it could be the least bad of Israel’s bad options, and even prove successful if it helps achieve a more favorable hostage deal or a cease-fire agreement. However, judging by the war’s conduct to date, it’s more likely that the operation will, in the end, backfire.

So far, the Israel Defense Forces has ordered the evacuation in the eastern outskirts of the city, taken over a two-mile-long section of the so-called Philadelphi Corridor along Gaza’s border with Egypt and occupied the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing, which is not actually in the city of Rafah.…  Seguir leyendo »