Israel’s Rafah attack is not quite what it seems

Rafah: The crossing, not the city

The headlines and media narrative about Israel going "in to Rafah" are wrong. So far at least, the Israeli operation has been focused on the Rafah border crossing outside the city of Rafah.

The narrative, at least within Israel, serves Netanyahu who has been under fire from his far-right coalition partners to launch the Rafah operation. This isn't the operation they have been calling for against the Hamas brigade in Rafah, but for now it's something.

What's the point of the operation?

Netanyahu and his supporters have spoken of the Rafah operation as the necessary final step to "destroying Hamas" and achieving "total victory".