Israel Repels Raid From Gaza, Highlighting Border ConcernsIncident comes as U.S. and Arab mediators push for a cease-fire deal
Mourners gathered Friday for a funeral in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, a focal point of Israel’s latest military operations. DOAA ROUQA/REUTERS
By Carrie Keller-Lynn
Updated June 7, 2024 8:35 am ET
TEL AVIV—Militants from Gaza tried to stage a raid into Israel on Thursday, the Israeli military said, an attempt that highlighted Israel’s fears that Hamas still poses a threat to its border security despite the group’s diminished military capabilities since it led the attacks of Oct. 7.
A group of fighters crossed the first of two border fences between Israel and Gaza before encountering an Israeli patrol, engaging in a firefight and retreating further back into Gaza, Israel’s military said. One Israeli soldier was killed in the clash, and three militants were killed by Israeli drone and tank fire.
The militants were carrying rifles and rocket-propelled grenades and were trying to infiltrate in the area of Kerem Shalom, home to one of the major land crossings for bringing humanitarian aid into the beleaguered Gaza Strip, the military said.
President Biden has urged Israel to end the war with Hamas, saying the group was incapable of conducting another Oct. 7-style attack. Thursday’s raid illustrates Israel’s concerns that it hasn’t sufficiently eliminated the military threat posed by Hamas.
“There are still lots of weapons and terrorists in Gaza and they have their own capabilities, from the IDF’s perspective there is still work to be done,” said an Israeli military official following the raid attempt, using an acronym for the Israel Defense Forces.
Israeli soldiers stand on a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip. PHOTO: AMIR LEVY/GETTY IMAGES
The incident comes as U.S. and Arab mediators are making a concerted push to broker a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas to end eight months of fighting that has led to tens of thousands of casualties and a humanitarian disaster across Gaza.
Last Friday, Biden urged Israel to stand behind the proposed deal, which was based on its own framework, saying that Israel’s security isn’t at risk because Hamas has already been degraded.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel will continue its war until Hamas’s military and governance capabilities in Gaza are destroyed. Hamas on Thursday said it wouldn’t accept the proposal in its current form.
Netanyahu accepted an invitation to address a joint session of Congress on July 24 about Israel’s war in Gaza, the top two congressional Republicans announced on Thursday night.
Fighting continued across Gaza on Friday. The Israeli military said it was continuing its operations in central Gaza’s Bureij and Deir al-Balah, as well as Rafah in the south.
“There are still thousands of Hamas terrorists, armed, and capable of conducting terror attacks,” said Shalom Ben Hanan, a former senior Israeli security official. When Israel’s military is heavily deployed on the border and Hamas still dares to invade Israeli territory, “it hints to their abilities,” he said.
A Palestinian medic helps an injured girl at a hospital in Deir el-Balah. PHOTO: BASHAR TALEB/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
The Israeli military has intensified its campaign against Hamas in the central Gaza Strip this week. PHOTO: AFP CONTRIBUTOR#AFP/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Biden last week made public details of a previously undisclosed Israeli cease-fire proposal, which would return some Israeli hostages held in Gaza since Oct. 7 in exchange for an end to the fighting. While Biden presented the deal as a map to a permanent cease-fire, Israel described it as a path toward “sustainable calm,” an Israeli official said, and Netanyahu’s office has repeatedly said that the deal wouldn’t end the war before Hamas is uprooted.
Hamas’s Gaza chief and architect of the Oct. 7 attack, Yahya Sinwar, said that he wouldn’t accept a proposal that didn’t lead to a permanent cease-fire, potentially stalling negotiations.
Thursday’s incident is one of several since Hamas-led militants burst through into southern Israel and killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities. The resulting war has killed more than 36,000 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to Palestinian health authorities. The figure doesn’t specify how many were combatants.
Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist group based in Lebanon, has made several additional attempts to cross into Israel from that country, after opening its fight against Israel on Oct. 8. The undeclared war between Israel and Hezbollah has increased in intensity in recent weeks. Efforts to end the fighting between the two are unlikely to bear fruit until the war stops in Gaza, diplomats briefed on the process say.
Further complicating negotiation efforts, Netanyahu’s war-cabinet colleague Benny Gantz could resign his post as early as Saturday. Gantz, a centrist, in May said he would quit on June 8 if Netanyahu didn’t present a plan for ending the war and securing Gaza, and people close to Gantz say that is still his intention. Netanyahu’s government could survive the blow but would be more reliant on far-right politicians.