BERLIN — After weeks of delays, negotiations and distractions, Israel appeared to hint this week that its assault of Rafah — a city in the Gaza Strip teeming with displaced persons above ground and riddled with Hamas tunnels below — was all but inevitable. In what some analysts and residents of the city saw as a sign of preparations for an invasion, an Israeli military official on Tuesday gave some details that include relocating civilians to a safe zone a few miles away along the Mediterranean
In separate interviews, two leading Israeli national security experts gave strikingly different accounts of the dynamics of the war. They disagreed about an invasion of Rafah, who is calling the shots, and whether the war is even ongoing more than six months on.