The Times newspaper published an article by commentator William Hague, in which he warned against the Israeli attack on the city of Rafah, and said that it would be a fatal mistake.

The writer stated: “After October 7 against Israel, I wrote saying that the Israelis must be careful not to fall into Hamas’ trap.” “After more than four months, this could be the week in which Israel stumbles into the trap.” He explained that “a comprehensive military operation in which more than a million and a half Gazans are concentrated will not bring about the comprehensive victory that Benjamin Netanyahu talks about, but rather it will lead to the erosion of Israeli security in the long run, and you will not be sympathetic to Hamas if you say that the comprehensive attack on Rafah is a mistake. Rather, it may be.” Like me, you agree with Israel's need for military action so far, while recognizing the need for more humanitarian aid. You cannot deal with the demonstrations against Israel or those calling for a ceasefire unilaterally, in a way that leaves Hamas able to attack again,” Al-Kat said.

He added, “No detainees can be released without pressure on the kidnappers.” Like other Western commentators, the British Foreign Secretary and former Conservative Party leader said that it is Hamas that is endangering the lives of civilians in Gaza, and that it is waging a war from under the hospitals and even the UNRWA compounds.

He believes everything he said previously, but he believes that Rafah threatens to be a turning point for Israel, and the moment it crosses the line, it will fall into a trap. For Netanyahu, Rafah is the path to the comprehensive victory that he wants, and “if you think of Hamas as an army, there is logic. Hamas has 24 military battalions, of which Israel claims to have destroyed 18, and four of them are located in Rafah, and if you destroy them, victory is in your hand.”

However, Hamas, which bears some features of the army, bears other features of the insurgency. We know from bitter experience that you can defeat rebel army units, but they will reappear from the rubble after a short period, with many recruits.

The West experienced this in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Israelis also know it in Lebanon during the invasion in 1982 and their withdrawal in 2000, when they left behind a stronger enemy.

Today, Hezbollah is stronger than ever. “You can achieve comprehensive victory over an army in battle, but not against a rebellion whose strength is based on an idea rooted in the people.” In order for victory to be achieved, resorting to military force must be accompanied by wise politics. Therefore, sending Israeli soldiers to Rafah, as happened in the past months in other areas of Gaza, is a disregard for this policy. The city has a larger population, and most of the residents are on the brink of hunger and have nowhere to escape. On Sunday, Joe Biden appealed to Netanyahu and asked him to be careful not to harm civilians.

For the Israeli war government, the four Hamas battalions are very tempting, and there are other numbers for the Israelis to think about, which are 17,000 orphans, who will one day turn into fighters and take revenge in the future.

It is believed that the Israeli decision regarding Rafah is the most important and critical decision of the decisions taken since the beginning of the war. It represents a fateful choice between two schools, which are that no peace is possible with the Palestinians, only deterrence. The second calls for leaving room for a two-state solution one day, otherwise there will be no peace. Currently, the first school led by Netanyahu, despite the decline in his popularity, is dominant.

The writer believes that it is easy to see that deterrence can prevent wars, from the 38 dividing line between South and North Korea, to the Line of Control between India and Pakistan in Kashmir and the Russian-NATO border in the Baltic region, and it is the only concept that preserves peace.

For this reason, countries build nuclear reactors and weapons. After the end of the war in Ukraine, the only way to deter Russia is to integrate Kiev into NATO.

Perhaps Israel believes that the deterrence that succeeded with others will succeed with it, and that is why it built nuclear reactors to limit the attempts of Arab countries to attack it, but the matter is not that way. Deterrence may succeed with countries, but it does not deter armed groups.

As military expert Sir Lawrence Friedman said, Israel has moved toward trying to completely destroy the threat, and this will not succeed without a political vision for who will rule Gaza after the war, neither Hamas nor Israel. Diplomacy over the past months has shown that a solution to the war in the Middle East is possible. A solution that can be adopted by rational people on both sides of the conflict: the release of detainees, the departure of Hamas leaders from Gaza, the return of the Palestinian Authority, the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, the cessation of settlement in the West Bank, the United States providing security guarantees to Saudi Arabia, the West’s recognition of the Palestinian state and Israel’s acceptance of it.

This is the context in which David Cameron, the British Foreign Secretary, spoke about the possibility of recognizing a Palestinian state. Everyone admits that this is a long-term ambition that requires years, and will not be achieved without removing Netanyahu from the equation and Arab control over the Palestinian leadership. It would be a fatal mistake for Israel to narrow the space for a solution and resort to wars that it cannot deter and in which it cannot achieve victory. The trap is now in front of it, and the future of the Middle East may depend on Rafah.