Point of reckoning: Hamas and Israel are on the brink of war again

Israel and the Palestinian Hamas are once again on the verge of resuming fighting. This time, the reason was attacks on Israeli forces in Rafah. And although the Palestinians deny involvement in the incident, Israel continues to demand satisfaction. Experts interviewed by Izvestia believe that the incident seriously affects the peaceful settlement in Gaza, however, despite this, the peacekeeping momentum in the region has not yet been exhausted.

The Rafah crisis

According to information published by the press service of the Israeli Army (IDF), the incident occurred on October 17. A group of unmarked soldiers emerged from the tunnels and opened fire on the Israeli engineering troops. Clashes occurred in Khan Yunis and Rafah, in both cases the Israelis managed to fight back without losses. The resentment of the Jewish state was caused by something else: the affected units were located behind the "yellow line" – that is, they were withdrawn at a sufficient distance so as not to look like a threat in the eyes of Hamas. The Israelis considered the attack a "gross violation of the agreements." A counterattack followed a day later, simultaneously from the air and from the sea. As a result, 11 civilians were killed, eight of whom were children. No casualties have been reported in the ranks of Hamas.

Political analyst Dastan Tokoldoshev believes that the symbolic importance of Rafah has added to the tension in the situation: since October 7, 2023, the area around it has remained a sensitive area.

"Firstly, a huge number of people passed through it who tried to leave the territory of Palestine at various times; secondly, this area affects the interests of Egypt, which, as you know, does not take a pro–Palestinian or pro-Israeli position in the conflict," he said in an interview with Izvestia.

The expert also noted that the clashes disrupted the opening of the Rafah checkpoint. If earlier the Palestinian Embassy in Egypt reported that the checkpoint would reopen on Monday, now this prospect is vague.

The Loyalist factor

The Palestinian movement said it had nothing to do with the attack and viewed it as an attempt by "third forces" to disrupt the truce. "In the area of [Rafah – approx. There is no fighting — this is a red zone under Israeli control, communication with their forces has been cut off," the official Hamas commentary says.

The Palestinians are convinced that pro-Israeli loyalists who remained one-on-one with Hamas after the withdrawal of IDF forces could have staged a provocation in Rafah. The main suspicions fall on people from the Dogmush clan – its leadership had previously called for revenge against Hamas for a series of public massacres of pro-Israeli loyalists.

The Israeli airstrike also indirectly benefits the "Popular Forces" led by Yasser Abu Shabab. After the cease-fire, the leadership of the "Narodniks" found themselves under siege at a base in one of the districts of Rafah. The bombing could have given the loyalists a chance to get out of the "fire bag" unnoticed.

At the same time, the version of events presented by Hamas is almost entirely based on circumstantial evidence, and therefore has not become convincing either for the United States or for Arab intermediaries.

Rocking from the inside

Against the background of the escalation in Gaza, Israeli "hawks" expectedly revived, looking for a reason to resume the campaign against Hamas. In particular, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir appealed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a request to resume a full-scale military operation. And the day before that, he made a speech to supporters in which he set an "interim deadline" for the Prime Minister's office to disband Hamas. If the government does not listen to his arguments, Ben-Gvir threatens (as in January 2025) to defiantly leave the government together with his fellow party members and provoke another management crisis.

However, Netanyahu also demonstrates a change in rhetoric. Even before the incident in Rafah, the Israeli prime minister returned to harsh language, threatening Hamas with "total annihilation." And after the clashes, he instructed the military leadership to "take decisive measures against terrorist targets" in Gaza, which could become a prologue to new targeted strikes on the territory of the exclave.

Netanyahu has a reason to raise the stakes. And, more importantly, the operational capabilities for this.

- Netanyahu gets a good reason to continue the military operation in the Gaza Strip. The main task – to calm the opposition by returning the hostages – was successfully completed by him," Alexey Yurk, a researcher at the Department of Foreign Policy Studies at the Arbatov Institute of the USA and Canada, said in an interview with Izvestia.

The expert also drew attention to the "diplomatic cover" on the part of the United States: on October 18, the State Department stated that it was Hamas that was preparing to violate the truce, whereas earlier Trump had spoken more than transparently about this, in fact allowing Israel to re-launch hostilities in the Gaza Strip in this case.

Prospects for conflict

Despite the fact that Trump actually gave Israel the "green light" for proactive defense (thus formalizing the right of West Jerusalem to resume the offensive in the exclave at any time), Washington is not interested in restarting the conflict. This is evidenced, among other things, by the work on the preparation of new rounds of settlement. The role of "conciliator" is assigned to US Vice President Jay Dee Vance, whose visit to Israel, according to media reports, is expected next week. Vance is expected to arrive with Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and their key task will be to advance the "second phase" of turning the temporary "regime of silence" into a permanent one.

The EU is also demonstrating its willingness to help defuse the crisis. In particular, Brussels has begun work on the creation of a monitoring mission that, together with the Palestinian security forces, will monitor the Rafah checkpoint from the exclave. And the current crisis, apparently, has only reinforced this intention.

"Nothing cancels the great interest of regional actors, external actors, including European states, to help strengthen the implementation of the agreement, and, consequently, they will try to either silence the incident or leave it without consequences," said Grigory Lukyanov, an employee of the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

According to the expert, Hamas perceives the ceasefire agreement precisely as an agreement on a "pause" in hostilities, and a pause for several years, which is necessary in order to restore positions, accumulate forces and resources lost and spent during the two-year war. And, therefore, I am also interested in the "deal" being implemented at least on a certain scale.