Netanyahu doubles down on Rafah op, Abbas asks Hamas to close hostage deal

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that he planned to move forward with a military operation in Gaza’s Rafah, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas to finalize a hostage deal with Israel to prevent such action.

“We will fight until complete victory with a powerful action, including in Rafah after we allow the civilian population to leave the combat zone,” Netanyahu wrote in a post on X.

He spoke out amid strong international condemnation of any potential operation in Rafah, which is near the Egyptian border.

Netanyahu has promised that he would move forward only once a plan to protect civilians in Rafah had been completed.

International concern, however, is high for the fate of over 1.3 million Palestinians in Rafah, many of whom fled there to escape bombings in the northern part of the enclave.

The possibility of an IDF operation in Rafah, an area considered to be the last Hamas stronghold, has also become a pressure lever to force the terror group to make a hostage deal with Israel.

In an unusual move, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas to soften its demands because a hostage deal was likely to prevent an IDF operation in Gaza.

“We call on everyone, especially the Hamas movement, to quickly complete the [hostage] deal so that we can protect our people and remove all obstacles,” Abbas said, according to the Palestine News Agency, WAFA.

“We hold everyone responsible for placing any obstacles from any party to disrupt the deal because things are no longer tolerable, and it is time for everyone to bear responsibility,” Abbas said.

Abbas urges Hamas

Abbas urged Hamas to “spare Palestinian people the scourge of another catastrophe with ominous consequences, no less dangerous than the Nakba of 1948, and to avoid the occupation’s attack on the city of Rafah, which will lead to thousands of victims, suffering, and displacement for our people.”

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters in Washington that Abbas’s comments were unusual and that more leaders should call Hamas to task. 

“Some of the international community’s pressure should be on Hamas, and Abbas coming forward today to do that has been unusual,” Sullivan said.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock who is visiting Israel spoke of her opposition to an Israeli military operation in Gaza when she spoke with reporters in Jerusalem.

Baerbock said: "1.3 million people are waiting there in a very small space. They don't really have anywhere else to go right now ... If the Israeli army were to launch an offensive on Rafah under these conditions, it would be a humanitarian catastrophe.”

French President Emmanuel Macron's office said in a statement that Macron, in a phone call with Netanyahu, had expressed his firm opposition to a possible Israeli military offensive in Rafah.

"This could only lead to a humanitarian catastrophe of a new magnitude and to forced displacement of populations, which would constitute violations of international human rights and bring additional risk of regional escalation," it said.

Reuters contributed to this report.