Hamas terrorists are resuming their presence in northern Gaza Strip, months after the IDF had initially cleared the Strip except for the far south of the Strip: Rafah and a couple small villages near Rafah.

[R]enewed violence, in areas Israeli forces had previously largely cleared of Hamas, serves as a sobering example for Israel’s forces of the difficulty of consolidating gains as they prepare an offensive in Rafah, the militant group’s last major bastion.

It’s certainly true that clearing an area of the remnants of a terrorist entity that operates as a dispersed network and that is skilled at (literal) underground operations and keeping that area clear is deucedly difficult.

The problem illustrated by the renewed fighting in the cleared areas, though, is not one of that difficulty. On the contrary, the problem so illustrated originates in the IDF’s failure to finally destroy the terrorists in their last enclave, Rafah and those one or two remaining villages. So long as those terrorist entities exist, they’ll continue to infiltrate from wherever they are concentrated to other areas of Gaza.

Israel needs to stop dithering about Rafah and go in, in force, and finish exterminating the terrorists there. The Biden administration needs to stop supporting Hamas with its words and Biden’s kowtowing to the terrorist supporters in his administration and get fully behind Israel in words and especially in overt action as the IDF (finally) moves in.