The day before yesterday, Israel officially announced the withdrawal of most of its troops from southern Gaza, specifically the withdrawal of the 98th Division, which had been fighting in Khan Younis for four months, leaving only the Nahar Brigade.
In my opinion, there are three main reasons for Israel's withdrawal from southern Gaza:
First, the pressure of the Yankees.
As I have said before, the war has created enormous difficulties for Biden's campaign, with a large number of young Democratic voters having a negative view of the Biden administration that supports Israel because of the huge civilian casualties caused by Israel's actions in Gaza.
Out of electoral pressure, Biden has recently been pressuring Netanyahu not to launch an offensive against Rafah in the short term, because nearly half of the Gazans are currently gathered in this small small city, and if the fighting starts, it will cause staggering civilian casualties.
This is why the United States has vetoed the UN ceasefire draft three times before, but most recently they abstained from voting. The attack on the NGO World Central Kitchen a few days ago was the last straw that crushed the attitude of the United States (and other allies of Israel).
Although Israel made a rare admission of "serious violations of combat procedures" and the unprecedented dismissal of two officers, it was not enough to calm the anger of allies, and Biden spoke with Netanyahu to sharply criticize Israel on the matter, stressing that "the attacks on aid workers and the humanitarian situation in Gaza are unacceptable." Israel must take steps to address civilian injuries and worker safety – and work towards a ceasefire to bring the hostages home."
Although Tanyahu has repeatedly emphasized that his decision-making is not influenced by other countries in the past period, I still believe that the West, especially the United States, still has to give a little bit of face.
Second, pressure within Israel.
Various demonstrations within Israel have recently criticized Netanyahu's handling of the war and demanded that he bring the hostages home. Two days ago, 100,000 people marched in Tel Vi to demand that hostage talks and elections be held.
Netanyahu, the old fox, withdrew some of his troops from southern Gaza at this time, and assumed the gesture of settling the hostage issue through peaceful negotiations (it has now been confirmed that Israel will send negotiators to Cairo for the next round of hostage talks), apparently with the intention of appeasing popular anger.
Third, to deal with possible threats from Iran.
Despite the widespread belief that Iran is unlikely to launch an attack on Israel from its own territory and can only continue to use other countries or proxy wars, Netanyahu still does not dare to take it lightly. In order to prevent a possible Iranian counterattack, Israel has sounded the alarm, many soldiers on leave have been called back to their posts, and GPS signals in the area have been jammed in order to prevent Iranian missiles from using GPS signals to launch strikes against Israel.
In addition, bringing back surplus troops from Gaza in the unlikely event that the Battle of Rafah is unlikely to begin anytime soon should have been a consideration in Netanyahu's decision.
Interestingly, this incident quickly triggered an intracranial orgasm for many people here:
On the premise of maintaining a blockade of Gaza, part of Israel's withdrawal was interpreted as a "total collapse", and even Al Jazeera, which has been professionally anti-Israel for decades, was embarrassed to say so (see screenshot below).
I remember that when the Israeli army withdrew part of its troops from northern Gaza, they said the same thing, but the Israeli army plowed southern Gaza again, and Hamas was crushed, except for Rafah, there were only a few self-employed people who occasionally fired cold guns.
Is this still called the total collapse of Israel?
It seems that Mr. Zhang Xuefeng's statement is still very correct...
Text/West Building Drinking Moon
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