This is an excerpt from Security Briefing, Al-Monitor's weekly newsletter covering defense and conflict developments in the Middle East. To get Security Briefing in your inbox, sign up here.
WASHINGTON — In a series of meetings with Israel’s defense chief in Washington this week, top Biden administration officials sought not so much to prevent an Israeli military operation in Rafah, but rather to delay and narrow its scope.
Some 1.5 million destitute Palestinian civilians are sheltered in the southern Gaza city on the closed Egyptian border.
Israeli officials say among them — and likely beneath, in tunnels — are top Hamas commanders and at least four battalions of fighters. The Israel Defense Forces estimates their numbers at 4,000-6,000, possibly more.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists the IDF must launch an operation in the city to destroy any remnants of Hamas that could form the nucleus of a postwar insurgency.
