The fathers, brothers and sons who are risking their lives for their country do not want to go into Rafah, on the Egyptian border of the Gaza strip. The ordinary Palestinians who hate Hamas and wish for a swift Israeli victory – and there are more of them than you think – do not want a battle in Rafah. There are more than a million human shields there. The question is not one of wants. The question is one of needs.

If Rafah remains untouched, Israel will have lost the war

Attacking the terrorists’ last redoubt is not some kind of genocidal indulgence, as many in the west would shamefully have you believe. It would have a single objective. If Rafah remains untouched, Israel will have lost the war. The terrorists will rearm via the smuggling tunnels that burrow from Egypt into the town. There will be another October 7, another worse conflict. You cannot put out three quarters of a fire; either you extinguish it completely or it you don’t.

Which brings us to the United States. Yesterday, an Israeli delegation landed in Washington DC for crunch talks with the Biden administration. The Americans are presenting alternative plans for how Israel can supposedly snuff out Hamas without a major ground incursion in Rafah. ‘This isn’t us saying, no you can’t do it,’ a senior US official told the Times of Israel. ‘We’re saying that we’re willing to work with you on viable alternatives that still help you achieve your objectives.’

Let’s set aside the disgraceful statements from DC in recent weeks, such as the calls by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for Israel to change leadership in the middle of war, which the US President endorsed. Let’s ignore the fact that the American military has rather less experience of comparable urban warfare than the Israelis, particularly underground.

And let’s put aside the way in which America’s aggressive rhetoric towards its ally – with Biden accusing Israel of ‘indiscriminate bombing’ and going ‘over the top’ – has emboldened Hamas, which gloats, cocks its weapons and prays for Israel to buckle to international pressure.

Instead, let us consider whether there is an alternative to an invasion of Rafah, as the White House suggests.

The American plan is expected to emphasise sealing the Egyptian border, a narrow strip of land called the Philadelphi corridor, which is the location of the smuggling tunnels. When Israel withdrew from Gaza unilaterally in 2005, it was to retain control of the corridor due to security concerns. But Ariel Sharon, the prime minister at the time, decided that it was militarily indefensible – it is only about 100 yards wide – and instead struck a deal with Egypt to protect it from the smugglers. Over the years, however, the Egyptian task force became corrupted and incompetent. The smuggling flourished.

Washington’s proposals are expected to involve three parts. First will be a new security arrangement with Cairo, alongside an infrastructure project that will create an impregnable frontier along the Philadelphi corridor, both above and below the ground. In theory, this would prevent any remaining Hamas battalions (there are about four in Rafah) from re-arming, recruiting and regaining dominance over the territory. Such cooperation with Egypt would be hampered if it followed a bloody battle in Rafah, the Americans will argue, enabling smuggling in the future.

The Biden administration will be unlikely to oppose all Israeli military action. But it will argue against an invasion and instead endorse targeted operations against the Hamas leadership, whether in Rafah or elsewhere, as part of an effort to disrupt its command-and-control structure and release the hostages. Thirdly, its emphasis – as was the case with the President’s State of the Union speech last week – will not be on defeating Hamas. It will be on easing Palestinian suffering. It will demand a surge of humanitarian aid via new ground routes into Gaza, including in the north of the territory, where 300,000 Palestinians are languishing in a state of lawlessness. It will propose plans for reconstruction and the establishment of an alternative government, probably drawn from the corrupt and authoritarian Fatah, which rules the West Bank in the spirit of corruption, nepotism and repression.

It is difficult to look at an outline of the American proposals without the words ‘pie’ and ‘sky’ coming to mind.

Let’s consider this from the Israeli point of view (after all, it is their necks and those of their children that are on the line). Israel has tried to secure the border with Gaza before. On October 6, the fence defending the southern kibbutzim was the most high-tech and expensive in the world, featuring advanced sensors and extensive subterranean fortification. By the end of the following day, it had literally been bulldozed and 1,200 Israelis lay dead.

Even if the proposed Philadelphi barrier is a success, what’s to say the Egyptians won’t gradually resile from their commitments, as they have done in the past? What’s to say a fanatical rump of Hamas won’t find alternative smuggling routes by which to rearm? After all, it has the might and ingenuity of Iran behind it. Moreover, what pressure will be brought to bear to win the release of the hostages? It is true that two Israeli captives were rescued from Rafah via a special forces operation last month, but this required extensive intelligence, weeks of planning in a model version of the environment in Israel, and heavy doses of sheer bravery and luck.

There is no way that four Hamas battalions can be destroyed with pinpoint operations alone. The IDF has been hugely impressive in Gaza, swiftly destroying Hamas on a battlefield that was constructed around the principle of human shields. Special forces have played a vital role, being appended to every regiment – tanks, engineers, infantry – and supported by detailed intelligence. The military has been innovating as it goes, learning from every ambush and every tunnel and developing and deploying new technological solutions in realtime. But special forces troops aren’t invincible. This isn’t an episode of the A-Team.

What the Americans are proposing, therefore, is in essence a containment strategy. Seen through Israeli eyes, this disturbingly resembles Benjamin Netanyahu’s prevailing security doctrine in recent years, which sought to trap Hamas in Gaza and deter it while pursuing Israeli economic and military development, as well as providing financial and humanitarian support to the Strip.

The Jewish state’s economy doubled in the time that Hamas ruled Gaza. Its military was world-class. Up to 20,000 Gazans were allowed to work in Israel daily to bring much-needed liquidity into the Strip, and suitcases of Qatari cash were allowed to enter in the hope that they would ease the thirst for jihad. On October 7, none of that was much help.

Now let’s look at the situation from Hamas’s point of view. As the weeks roll by and the world’s mood turns more and more decisively against the Jewish state, the terrorists rub their hands together with glee.

Hamas censors the footage that emerges from Gaza, ensuring that only images of civilian suffering are seen by the world. It has built its entire strategy around the deaths of its own civilians, even telling them to ignore Israeli warnings to evacuate. It steals their humanitarian aid and launches attacks from their hospitals. In all likelihood – as an American statistician recently demonstrated – it fabricates the casualty figures.

With the passage of time, this approach is bearing fruit. Hamas sees the pressure exerted by the marches in western capitals upon their governments. It hears the Washington rhetoric towards Jerusalem. It sees international plans for a premature two-state solution, which would bring an unstable state infused with Iranian influence within miles of Tel Aviv. It tastes more Jewish blood.

The conclusion is obvious. What reason would the group have to lay down its weapons?  While Hamas is not a monolithic entity – its decadent leaders in Qatar are more horrified about the prospect of a Rafah bloodbath than its fanatical chiefs in the tunnels – the trajectory is clear. Hold out a little longer until Washington casts Israel adrift, then Rafah will not be assaulted. Survival and rearmament will be the reward.

Seen in this half-light, the American plan amounts to one thing: a plan to protect Hamas, in the name of protecting civilians. The war will end and a second October 7 can be planned.

That’s not to say that humanitarian concerns can be ignored. My former fixer is in Gaza with his family and I speak to him regularly. He staunchly opposes Hamas and supports the IDF. He does not deserve to be harmed and nor do the many like him.

Evacuating a million Palestinians from Rafah to a place of safety, without their number being infiltrated by Hamas, is a massive challenge for Israel, but it is necessary before any Rafah invasion. But such a military move will not happen within the coming weeks. For one thing, Ramadan is not over, and attacking at a holy time – as Hamas did on October 7, which fell on Simchat Torah – would be a needless provocation. For another, many Israeli reservists have already been sent home to their families, and they would first need to be recalled to the front.

Finally, it is worth considering the situation from a regional perspective. Before October 7, the prospect of a normalisation deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel seemed likely. For the desert kingdom, one of the sweeteners was the promise of an American defence pact against the rising threat from Iran.

Fast forward to today. When they look at the behaviour of the United States towards Israel in its hour of need, the rulers of Riyadh are rattled. Washington was supportive of Jerusalem at first, but in under six months the White House has changed its tune, subjecting its war-torn ally to the grossest public insults and pressure. Sure, it is still shipping arms. But can the US be depended upon to make good on other promises of security?

If peace is ever to come to the Middle East, it will arrive on the back of powerful, conservative Arab states that are willing to develop a friendship towards Israel and support regional stability. These countries, from Egypt to the Gulf, are no friends of Hamas. First, that terror group must be crushed, while protecting civilians as far as humanly possible. Then the rebuilding can begin.

Shrinking from the final fight would be a disaster for Washington. It will only prolong the cycle of bloodshed and cost countless more lives in the long term.