'Carnage' looming in Rafah: Netanyahu's future hangs in the balance as he seeks a 'military victory'
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00:00 Well, for more on this story, we can turn to Yossi Mikkelberg, an associate fellow with
00:04 the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.
00:08 Thank you for joining us on France 24.
00:10 I wanted to ask, what are the chances of Netanyahu backing down and saying, OK, we won't go ahead
00:16 with this ground offensive?
00:17 Good evening.
00:19 Well, there are some options there.
00:21 Either he's deliberately, in the way that he's declaring about the offensive, that he's
00:28 bluffing and trying to put pressure on Hamas and also on the international community, forgive
00:37 me, to put pressure there and see whether Hamas is ready to surrender because, you know,
00:43 that offensive is coming.
00:46 On the other hand, he might really mean it, which is more likely.
00:50 And then the international community, if he wants to stop it, and mainly in this case
00:56 is Washington, is to stop it from happening and put pressure.
01:02 But the issue right now is it's much of it is about Netanyahu's survival, the Israeli
01:07 government's survival in power.
01:10 And every aspect of his ability to survive is damaged day by day, whether by the hostages
01:18 not being released yet, which might get even worse, if there is an attack in Rafa, for
01:25 instance, downgrading the credit rating of Israel only before the weekend and the demonstration
01:34 protest against him in Israel.
01:36 And he's looking for a military victory.
01:39 And this probably will make him even in this sense more dangerous.
01:44 Well, this has notably created a standoff with Egypt.
01:48 The Associated Press is quoting Egyptian officials as saying, "Cairo's threatened to suspend
01:52 its peace treaty with Israel in the event of a ground offensive in Rafa."
01:57 Is this likely?
01:58 And what would that mean for the region?
02:01 It depends what happens.
02:02 I think Egypt means what it says, because there are different scenarios.
02:07 There's one scenario, if Israel enters into Rafa, where there are a million people right
02:14 now, many of them that already been displaced from other areas of the Gaza Strip, it might
02:22 end in a huge carnage.
02:24 And this, of course, something that many in the Arab world will see as crossing the line
02:29 if it hasn't been crossed already.
02:31 But there is also a scenario from Egypt's point of view that this million, more than
02:37 million people right now will try to find a way out of Gaza.
02:42 And the only way for them to actually escape such a terrible destiny or fate will be actually
02:49 to go inside Egypt, which is also for Egypt is a nightmare scenario.
02:56 So I think the message from Cairo right now is we are not ready for either of the scenarios
03:02 in case of there is a military offensive by Israel.
03:07 Well, just on that, Israel says that these Palestinians in Rafa will be able to move
03:12 further north where troops have already, as they say, cleared the area.
03:18 What do you think about that?
03:19 Well, first of all, we see if there is, from at least what I heard today, some UN and other
03:28 humanitarian organizations that are still operating in Gaza said that this is not a
03:33 viable option.
03:34 If Israel, in this sense, can find a route for the vast, vast majority of displaced people,
03:42 bear in mind, those are civilians, those are not Hamas militants, if they can find for
03:50 them safe passage, in a way it mitigates the situation that many of us are so worried about.
03:58 But this remains to be seen because we saw during the war over the last four months that
04:05 displaced people were told, move to these more secure areas.
04:09 And then they found, unfortunately, that these places were not safe for them.
04:15 All right, Yossi Mikkelberg, thank you for speaking to France 24.