March 21, 2024 (EIRNS)—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday assured his population that his concession to U.S. President Joe Biden, to send a team to Washington, to evaluate Biden’s plan to beat Hamas without invading Rafah, was basically a temporary delay. He would “soon approve plans to evacuate the civilian population” from Rafah. “While we are preparing to enter Rafah, which will take some time, we continue to operate with all our might. We continue to operate in Khan Younis, in the central [Gaza] camps, for the elimination and capture of senior Hamas officials, as we just did in Shifa Hospital, while eliminating hundreds of terrorists…. As I promised you time and time again—we are determined to achieve absolute victory, and we will achieve it.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, after meetings in Saudi Arabia and Egypt yesterday and today, will be in Israel on March 22. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told the press yesterday that Blinken will discuss the need to ensure Hamas’s defeat, “including in Rafah.” He will also “discuss U.S. and international efforts to dramatically increase and sustain the delivery of humanitarian assistance to civilians who are suffering from a lack of adequate food supplies.”
