What happened
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken “delivered some of the Biden administration’s strongest public criticism yet of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza” in a pair of TV interviews Sunday, The Associated Press said. Meanwhile, as Israeli forces pushed deeper into Rafah to pursue a goal of eradicating the last Hamas military stronghold, reconstituted Hamas forces attacked in areas farther north that Israel had declared cleared of militants.
Who said what
Israel “may go in and have some initial success” in Rafah, “potentially at an incredibly high cost to civilians,” but “they will be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency because a lot of armed Hamas will be left no matter what they do in Rafah,” Blinken said. Notably, U.S. and Israeli intelligence say “Hamas’ top leaders in the Gaza Strip, including Yahya Sinwar, are not hiding in Rafah,” said The New York Times.
Blinken also discussed a report released Friday on Israel’s use of U.S.-provided weapons, saying “it was reasonable to assess that, in certain instances, Israel acted in ways that are not consistent with international humanitarian law.”
What next?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has yet to chart a vision for postwar Gaza’s governance,” saying only that he sees no place for the Palestinian Authority or an Israeli military occupation, The Wall Street Journal said. Nothing good will happen, Blinken said, if Israel “leaves a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas.”