With the Israeli offensive in Gaza in its fifth month, pressure is building up on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And it’s not only directed from foreign governments.
Now, non-state actors such as Hamas and the Houthi rebels in Yemen are said to have agreed to join hands against Israel.
Senior members of both the armed groups and another Palestinian Islamist group called the Islamic Jihad held a secret meeting with the Houthis, news agency AFP has reported.
Where the meeting took place is not known but the armed militias apparently discussed how they could coordinate their actions of resistance for the next stage of the war in Gaza, according to the media report.
The Houthis have already been a source of headache for global trade for months now, ever since they began targeting merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. They called it a move to show solidarity with Gazans and to express their anger against Israeli strikes.
As a result, merchant ships are choosing the relatively safer but longer route via the Cape of Good Hope. But now the Houthis plan to target that as well.
Earlier this week in a televised speech, Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said, “Our main battle is to prevent ships linked to the Israeli enemy from passing through not only the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, but also the Indian Ocean towards the Cape of Good Hope. This is a major step and we have begun to implement our operations related to it.”
He claimed that the Houthis have struck over 70 ships and barges in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea by suing missiles and drones. The US and the UK have launched counter-strikes against the Houthis in which over 30 rebels have been killed, by the groups own admission.
Hamas has presented a new ceasefire proposal to mediators, which includes the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for freeing Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, with an initial swap involving women, children, elderly, and ill hostages for 700-1,000 Palestinian detainees.
Netanyahu has called the Hamas demands unrealistic but hasn’t shut the door yet. An Israeli delegation will travel to Doha for talks. Meanwhile, Netanyahu has okayed a plan for an Israeli attack on Rafah to flush out the remaining Hamas battalions there.
Rafah, which is in southern Gaza bordering Egypt, is home to about 1.5 million refugees displaced by the war. And an offensive there would lead to heavy casualties. Israel says there’s a plan to evacuate civilians from there
Netanyahu is clear about what he wants: total victory against Hamas and that includes those hiding in Rafah. In a recent conversation with Israel defence forces, he acknowledged there was international pressure to prevent a military offensive in Rafah. But he insisted that as the Prime Minister of Israel, he will repel those pressures.
We will enter Rafah and eliminate the remaining Hamas battalions, he said.
