Peter Baker
NY Times, May 7, 2024
“At the same time, no side knows the others’ breaking point, and I worry that no side accurately understands the others’ assessments.”
Over the course of a few hours, the news from the Middle East came into the White House Situation Room fast and furious.
Israel orders 100,000 civilians out of Rafah in prelude to invasion. Hamas “accepts” cease-fire deal, potentially precluding invasion. Israel conducts strikes against Rafah, possibly opening invasion. The war-is-on-off-on-again developments Monday left White House officials scrambling to track what was happening and what it all meant.
At the end of the day, they came to believe, each of the moves signaled less than originally met the eye, but reflected efforts to gain leverage at the negotiating table with a clear resolution not yet in sight.
In fact, Hamas did not “accept” a cease-fire deal so much as make a counteroffer to the proposal on the table previously blessed by the United States and Israel — a counteroffer that was not itself deemed acceptable but a sign of progress. At the same time, Israel’s strikes in Rafah evidently were not the start of the long-threatened major operation but targeted retaliation for Hamas rocket attacks that killed four Israeli soldiers over the weekend — and along with the warning to civilians, a way to increase pressure on Hamas negotiators.
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