Weekly Commentary: Wishful Thinking From Israeli Military Official That
Smuggling Into Gaza Stopped
Dr. Aaron Lerner 19 June 2024

Let's walk through some excerpts of this article published in the Washington
Post:

Israel says Rafah attack near completion, in potential shift for war
A shift from the widespread ground and air attacks that have leveled much of
the enclave would represent a significant milestone in the war.
By Steve Hendrix and Hajar Harb
The Washington Post June 18, 2024 at 3:31 p.m. EDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/18/israel-rafah-offensive-gaza-
hamas/

"The senior Israeli military official familiar with Rafah operations said
the 162nd Division carrying out the assault has made substantial progress on
Israel's three main goals in the area: attacking Hamas's last battalions;
destroying its military infrastructure; and cutting its supply of weapons
coming through tunnels from Egypt. "

[IMRA: "substantial progress" - so far so good. That's not claiming that
the job is completed, just that there has been substantial progress.]

"Within what is known as the Philadelphi Corridor - the IDF's code name for
the Rafah buffer zone that runs from Israel to the Mediterranean - troops
have detected 20 cross-border tunnels and destroyed 14 of them, choking off
Hamas's main source of weapons, according to the senior official. The
military estimates that another 20 tunnels remain to be detected."

[IMRA:
#1. " another 20 tunnels remain to be detected ". Why 20? Why not 50?
This is a throwback to the bad old days when Israeli military intelligence
would confidently announce a detailed inventory of the different rockets
which Hamas possessed - as if an Israeli official went over and counted the
stuff.

#2. "choking off Hamas's main source of weapons". How has the smuggling
been choked off already if, according to the same senior Israeli military
official, there are 20 tunnels out there which we have yet to detect.]

What is the agenda of this senior Israeli military official?

On the one hand, the official indicates that we have only detected half of
the smuggling tunnels (20 detected and another 20 to detect).

On the other hand, the same official claims that, somehow, detecting half of
the tunnels has already choked off the smuggling.

Here is the real issue: The mission of the IDF is not to choke off the
smuggling for a day, a week, a month or even a year.

The mission is to permanently stop the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza
Strip.

American sponsored UN Security Council resolutions notwithstanding, the
continuous deployment of the IDF on the Philadelphi Corridor is a necessary
condition for ensuring that the smuggling does not continue.


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IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis

Since 1992 providing news and analysis on the Middle East with a focus on Arab-Israeli relations

Website: www.imra.org.il