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After declaring it Hamas-free, why is Israel fighting again in northern Gaza?

The Israeli military has relaunched operations in the northern city of Jabalia in the Gaza Strip over the past week as Hamas fighters have returned to fill a power vacuum left in swaths of the enclave.

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 —    Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/05/bidens-grand-bargain-between-saudi-arabia-and-israel-hangs-thread#ixzz8aPZXSHeK
People walk past a mound of trash and destroyed buildings while smoke rises behind from an Israeli bombardment in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, on May 14, 2024. — AFP via Getty Images

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 — Seven months into Israel’s campaign in Gaza, and on the eve of a potential military invasion of Rafah, the Biden administration is publicly airing concerns that Pentagon officials have mostly exchanged in private since the start of the war.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday suggested that the Israeli military is poised to “inherent an insurgency” in Gaza if it fails to implement a credible plan for postwar security and reconstruction.

“Right now, the trajectory that Israel is on is, even if it goes in and takes heavy action in Rafah, there will still be thousands of armed Hamas left,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press.

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