Israel-Hamas War: What happened on day 219?

The Biden administration has offered to supply Israel with important intelligence information to avoid an extensive IDF operation in Rafah, The Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing four officials. 

According to the Post, the information offered by the US includes details regarding the whereabouts of Hamas leaders and the terror group's tunnels. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday morning, where he affirmed the "ironclad US commitment to Israel’s security and the shared objective of the defeat of Hamas."

The pair discussed the situation in Gaza and ongoing efforts to secure the release of hostages.  

Blinken repeated that the US opposed a major military ground operation in Rafah, where over one million people have taken shelter.  

Blinken went on to underscore the urgent need to protect civilians and aid workers in Gaza and urged Gallant to ensure assistance can move into Gaza and help address distribution challenges inside of Gaza as Israel pursues Hamas targets.

Israel launched strikes and artillery fire in eastern Rafah, according to reports by the Palestinian news agency Shaab on Monday overnight.

Hostile aircrafts intruded in Northern Israel, south of Kiryat Shmona in the Metzudat Koach area, late on Sunday night.

In a riff on Israel’s traditional torch-lighting ceremony, the official ceremony that marks the end of Remembrance Day and the beginning of Independence Day, hostage families and protesters for the hostages will hold an alternative ceremony.

The ceremony will be a “torch un-lighting and hope lighting” ceremony near Binyamina on the eve of Independence Day, Monday night.

“Without the hostages, there is no independence,” said organizers, who invited the public to join them in watching the ceremony’s live stream from home or screened around the country.

“While the Israeli government holds a cowardly, shameful, disconnected show with no audience, the hostage families and concerned citizens will hold a respectful and appropriate ceremony that is connected to the public’s feelings,” they added.

Unable to forget the October 7 disaster 

The ceremony will “recognize the pain and loss and look directly at the joint disaster [of October 7] while still inspiring and strengthening hope,” said organizers.

Rafah was never the key to resolving the war and peace issues between the Israeli government, the IDF, Hamas, and the US.

But it has evolved, in some ways by accident, into being the issue that has now brought every conflict between the many sides of this war to the forefront.

On Sunday, The Washington Post reported that the US is trying to offer more accurate locations of where Hamas’s leaders are in order to convince Israel not to expand Rafah into a fuller invasion.

To date, the IDF has only carried out a very limited operation in Rafah, but it has started to move toward a medium-sized operation, which could lead to evacuating 300,000 more out of somewhere between 800,000 to one million Palestinian civilians.

There is no question that the leak to The Post was planted to try to undermine any Israeli plan to expand the Rafah operation.

Egypt plans to join South Africa’s genocide petition against Israel at the International Court of Justice, its Foreign Ministry announced on Sunday, as part of its campaign to force Israel to halt a pending major military operation in Rafah.

Israel’s attacks on Gaza, Egypt said, “include deliberate targeting of civilians, infrastructure destruction, forced displacement, and creating unbearable living conditions, leading to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

“These actions constitute a flagrant violation of international law, humanitarian law, and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 regarding the protection of civilians during wartime,” the Foreign Ministry stated.

Egypt calls for Israel to stop military campaign in Rafah 

Egypt spoke up two days after South Africa turned to the ICJ and asked that it order Israel to stop its military operation in Rafah.

“Not only is there nowhere for the 1.5 million people and others in Rafah solely to flee to  – so much of Gaza having been reduced to rubble – if Rafah is similarly destroyed there will be little left of it or the prospect for the survival of Palestinian life in the territory,” South Africa wrote to the court.

Hamas' leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, is still hiding in tunnels under Khan Yunis, not in Rafah, American officials told the New York Times on Sunday.

According to the cited anonymous American officials, Israeli intelligence agencies agree that Sinwar and other Hamas leaders are not hiding in Rafah and are likely still under Khan Yunis, a city north of Rafah that the IDF pulled out of in early April. The officials added that they don't believe Sinwar was ever hiding in Rafah.

The architect of the October 7 massacre is also believed to be protecting himself with a group of Israeli hostages he uses as human shields in order to stop Israel from raiding or bombing his hideout, US and Israeli officials told the New York Times.

The US officials added that Israeli intelligence agencies have as good, or better, intelligence about Sinwar and that the US shares everything it knows with Israel. The comments by the US officials are seemingly in reference to a Saturday report by The Washington Post that the US had offered sensitive intelligence concerning the location of Hamas leaders to Israel if Israel agreed to hold back from a full-scale invasion of Rafah, a report that sparked outrage among Israeli leaders and pro-Israel politicians and activists.

Three IDF divisions were back fighting Hamas in Gaza on Sunday, with the 98th division in Jabalya in northern Gaza commanded by Brig.-Gen. Dan Goldfus, the 99th division in Zeitoun in north-central Gaza commanded by Brig.-Gen. Barak Hiram, and the 162nd division in Rafah in southern Gaza commanded by Brig.-Gen. Itzik Cohen.

While the high point of the invasion in October-November had five divisions in Gaza, there was only one division, the 162nd, still there by April 7, and even that division was no longer at full strength.

This means that the IDF is about halfway back to its full strength point in Gaza earlier in the war and signals the failure to prevent Hamas from quickly returning to power after seven months of war through small scale “clean-up” operations.

The IDF said it attacked over 150 targets on Saturday-Sunday, with wide use of air and artillery power, after a period in which foot soldiers had maintained order with only limited air strikes.  

IDF tells residents of Jabalya to evacuate, signaling new op.

Another sign of increased intensity in the current fighting is the IDF’s announcement that 400,000 civilians have so far evacuated Rafah, and around 100,000-150,000 are expected to evacuate Jabalya.

 The IDF said on Sunday it opened a new humanitarian aid crossing into the Gaza Strip in coordination with the United States.

The crossing, called 'Western Erez,' was opened in the northern Gaza Strip in order to transfer humanitarian aid, the IDF said in a statement.