Rafah release Netanyahu uses hostage rescue to justify strikes as support dwindles

Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was early this week deploying the successful rescue of two Israeli hostages to justify continued military pressure on Rafah, even as Israel came under intense international pressure not to launch a ground offensive against the southern Gaza city.

- Peter Beaumont

In the immediate aftermath of the rescue, which took place in the early hours of Monday, Netanyahu said it demonstrated the need for continuing pressure on Hamas in order to secure the release of the remaining hostages.

Others, however, might have drawn different lessons from the raid, which stands as a grim metaphor for Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.

The Israeli military has rescued just three hostages in more than four months of fighting, fewer than the number of hostages who have been killed in Israeli efforts to free them. Instead, the vast majority of hostages who have been released have had their freedom secured in negotiations with Hamas, with more than 100 freed during a weeklong ceasefire last year. At least 30 more are confirmed to have died in captivity, with fears for the lives of upwards of 20 others.

At least 67 Palestinians were killed during the raid, according to the Gaza ministry of health, as Israeli aircraft bombarded the neighbourhood with bombs, and the high death toll will be seen as telling its own grim story in the ratio of dead to rescued. It also underlines the enormous risk to civilian life in the event of an Israeli offensive against Rafah.

Amos Harel, writing in Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, suggested it was unlikely that Hamas would not learn from the rescue to ensure it was not repeated.