Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant holds an operational situation assessment together with senior Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) officials during a visit to the Philadelphi route.

Israel has defeated the Hamas brigade in the Rafah area in the southern Gaza Strip, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant claimed on Wednesday during a visit to the border area between Gaza and Egypt.

"The [Hamas] Rafah brigade has been defeated, and over 150 tunnels have been destroyed in the region,” he said. He had
instructed the troops to concentrate on destroying the remaining tunnels on the border between the coastal strip and Egypt in the coming period.

Israel had advanced to Rafah in May, despite massive international criticism, in order to destroy the remaining forces of the Palestinian Islamist terrorist organization there. An estimated 1 million refugees had crowded into the city, but have since left.

The Israeli troops also captured the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor. This 14-kilometres-long area is considered one of the biggest points of contention in the negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire.

Hamas is demanding Israel's complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on the other hand, insists that Israel must continue to control the corridor even after a ceasefire in order to prevent weapons smuggling.

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US officials say Gaza deal on edge of collapse

The deal to bring an end to the fighting in Gaza is on the brink of collapsing — and there is no clear immediate alternative agreement that could be put forward in its place, according to two U.S. and two Israeli officials.

The current proposal — pulled together by the U.S., Israel, Egypt and Qatar over several weeks in July — is the strongest form of the deal to date, the officials said, because it includes terms that are tailored to the demands of both Hamas and Israel. Israel has signed on, but Hamas says in public statements it will not accept the pact.

That has U.S. officials increasingly worried that this proposal will falter just as earlier ones did, with Hamas and Israel at odds and no clear path to end fighting or bring hostages home, the officials said.

That’s a much more dire assessment than what U.S. officials are presenting publicly. Even as they press the urgency of getting Hamas to agree, they have repeatedly said in recent days that they are closer than ever to getting both sides to sign on.

Just a few weeks ago, Biden administration officials were feeling optimistic. Hamas had privately signaled that it was amenable to the proposed deal, one of the U.S. officials said. Although some in the White House remain confident, many are now frustrated by the group’s public rhetoric and unsure whether Hamas’s remarks are merely bluster, a negotiating tactic, or whether the group is sincerely against the agreement.

Negotiators, including senior White House adviser on the Middle East Brett McGurk, are heading back to Cairo this week to try and iron out the details of the deal. If they cannot get Hamas on board, they may be out of options, increasing the chance of an increase in violence between Israel and Hezbollah and a direct confrontation between Israel and Tehran.

“We don’t know if Sinwar wants this deal,” said one of the officials familiar with Israel’s stance in the ongoing negotiations. “But if we don’t get the deal there’s a chance that Iran attacks and this escalates into a full blown confrontation.”

The officials in this story were granted anonymity to speak freely about sensitive diplomatic negotiations. The National Security Council and the Israeli embassy in Washington declined to comment.

The U.S. has signaled previously that it was close to a deal — first in the spring and then again in May when President Joe Biden’s announced a multiphase deal that would allow for the release of dozens of hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Each time, though, the talks have broken down, with Israel and Hamas layering on new conditions that the other side was unwilling to discuss or accept.

“We've seen Sinwar essentially veto or scuttle what was agreed and we've seen Netanyahu add additional conditions,” said Andrew Miller, who served as deputy assistant secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian affairs until June. “It does appear to be at an impasse, but it is one of those situations where even if the probability of reaching an agreement is small, it's hard to think of a better strategy.”

In Jerusalem on Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the deal currently on offer “probably the best, maybe last, opportunity” to get a cease-fire and free hostages.

Washington has for weeks touted the current form of the deal as a major success, saying it bridges several long standing disagreements between Israel and Hamas. And in recent days, U.S. officials have said they are optimistic, with Biden telling reporters Aug. 16 “we’re closer than we’ve ever been.”

But behind the scenes, officials are scrambling to find a way to get Hamas to agree — both privately and publicly — to the bridge proposal.

Negotiating with Hamas is notoriously difficult, as its leadership in Doha is often either at odds with its members on the ground in Gaza or struggle to communicate with them efficiently. Hamas has a history of publicly disagreeing to ceasefire deals before spontaneously agreeing to them, and U.S. officials say there’s still a chance that could happen with this deal.

But Hamas and Israel still disagree over several of the terms of the bridge proposal — one that the U.S. has refused to detail to reporters.

Miller argued that getting to a final agreement will “require additional movement from both Hamas and from Israel.”

An Israeli official said the proposal focuses primarily on Hamas releasing the remaining hostages and the bodies of those who have died. It also deals with how and whether Israeli forces will withdraw from Gaza.

Israel and Hamas disagree on the number of hostages to be released from the enclave. The original deal put forth by Biden in May included language that would have allowed for the release of dozens. It’s unclear what number is included in the bridge proposal — or how many are still alive.

Both Israel and Hamas also disagree over Israel’s presence in both the Philadelphi Corridor, a stretch of land on the Egypt-Gaza border, and in a main throughway that leads to northern Gaza. Israel has said it wants to maintain its position in both places to ensure Hamas cannot smuggle goods in through Egypt and reposition its strongholds.

Biden officials also want to strike a deal between Israel and Hamas to stave off further escalation on Israel’s northern border, where Hezbollah and the IDF have exchanged increasingly deadly fire. Although the conflicts deal with two separate Iranian-backed groups and entirely different battlefields, they are deeply connected. The events in each often impact the trajectory of the fighting in the other.

For months, the Biden administration has tried to handle talks over Gaza and the northern border separately by assigning different lead envoys and negotiators. But U.S. officials increasingly believe that if they can find a deal in Gaza, they can negotiate an off ramp for the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

If both conflicts continue, the likelihood grows that Tehran, which has been signaling for weeks it is preparing to attack Israel, will follow through on its threats. A massive strike inside Israel would be difficult for Jerusalem to ignore, setting the state for direct confrontation between the two countries.

“That’s obviously the biggest concern here and something we’ve been trying to avoid since Oct. 7,” one U.S. official said. “But the chances of that happening increase significantly if Hamas doesn’t agree to this proposal.”

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Thousands fleeing parts of southern Gaza after Israeli military reissues evacuation order

CNN video shot Wednesday shows thousands of people on the move again after the Israel Defense Forces reissued evacuation orders for parts of southern Gaza.

People were walking or on donkey carts as they left areas near the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah. Some were in private cars, loaded with their belongings, including mattresses and blankets, water and gas bottles. The streets appear littered with leaflets dropped by the IDF reiterating the order to evacuate.

According to UNRWA, the United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees, about 84% of Gaza is now covered by multiple evacuation orders issued over the past month.

By contrast, a CNN analysis shows that in the past month, the IDF has reduced the humanitarian zone in Gaza by 38%. That zone now amounts for 39 square kilometers (15 square miles), just over 10% of Gaza’s total area.

Amid the latest evacuation, people swarmed onto a UN truck carrying food aid, carrying off small bags of aid. For many, they’ve had to evacuate time and time again – leaving them in a constant state of displacement, uncertainty and the sense there is nowhere left to flee.

One of the evacuees, Muhammad Awad, told CNN: “There is bombardment, shooting, and quadcopters since this morning in the east of Deir al-Balah, so we are forced to flee. People go to the unknown. They have no idea. There was a statement ordering people to evacuate.”

Um Alaa, sitting on a cart, said it was the fourth time she has had to evacuate since October last year. “We don’t know where to go. We are going to look for a spot away from this dangerous place,” she said. “The whole of Gaza has become dangerous.”

There was panic among some as to what might come next.

“There are no longer places to go. There was only Deir al-Balah, and now they are asking us to evacuate Deir al-Balah,” an elderly man said.

“I am afraid that tomorrow they will confine all of us on the seashore of Deir al-Balah, then exterminate all of us.

“After so many displacements, we no longer have the strength to evacuate yet another time.”

The Deir Al-Balah evacuation has also caused complications in the supposed humanitarian zones of Gaza. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that parts of a major road – crucial for humanitarian missions going from south to north – were caught up in the order, making it “nearly impossible” for aid workers to travel along the route.

Um Ismail, a woman with small children, said people were defenseless.

“Why are they fighting us?” she said. “We are not Hamas, we are simply people staying put in our homes. They displaced us not once, but 10 times. Why? What have we done?”

A woman in the back seat of a car exclaimed: “Do you want to know what’s happening – ask Hamas and the Israelis if you want to know what’s happening to us.”

Her family said it was their second displacement. For a very few, it was the first time since the conflict began that they’d had to move.

One man was crying as he drove a car packed with women and children. “I have no idea where we are heading to,” he said. “Anywhere we can stay. God help us. This is the first time I am being displaced.”

But for Umm Said it was the seventh move in as many months.

“I don’t know where I am heading to. They said leave, we left. We have no idea,” she said. “Every time we find a place and settle down, they say go back. And here we are. I have taken some flour for the children, what else can I take with me?”

Abu Muhammad Hajjaj, a resident of Gaza City, had been displaced from the Shujaiya neighborhood.

“We came here to our relatives in Deir al-Balah. Today, they have asked us to evacuate. We don’t have any resources; we don’t even have a tent to live in. We don’t have money to pay for a car. We don’t know where to go,” he told CNN.

“People are crying and complaining of everything: disease, hunger, poverty, lack of hygiene, lack of medicine. You search in all of Gaza for paracetamol for a headache and you can’t find it.”

Hajjaj also appealed to the international community, including the UN Security Council, to “find us a solution.”

“We don’t have money. We don’t have tents. We have nothing,” he said. “We are not living in our own homes. We are on the street. They cannot keep on telling us to evacuate from here and there. This is not a way to live.”

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