As reported earlier, an Israeli delegation has arrived in Cairo for crucial ceasefire talks

a day after Hamas said it had accepted an Egyptian kathari proposal to explore what could

happen next.

We turn now to Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar

at the Arab Gulf States Institute.

That's a think tank here in Washington.

Hussein, good to see you.

Thank you very much.

So let's begin with the Israeli troops seizing that critical

Rafa border crossing today. What does that say to you that there's some larger incursion imminent

or a different kind of strategy? No, it doesn't say that. What it says to me is that the Israelis are going ahead. of to seize the Philadelphia corridor, which is the parcel of land between the Egyptian border

and Raffa and the urban areas most south in Gaza.

And this is a crucial, strategically crucial area which the Israelis agreed

not to occupy in the peace treaty with Egypt and then again in 2005 when they redeployed

their troops out of Gaza and then again after

2007 when Hamas took over they've agreed many times with the Egyptians not to take it but

I think they're determined after October 7th reoccupied to

reoccupied to create a buffer zone in the south that will mimic the buffer zone that they are going to beef up and greatly strengthen in the north

the one that Hamas and the others breached on October 7.

And lastly, I think they're thinking about maintaining troops in a buffer zone in the center of Gaza,

dividing Gaza in half between north and south.

And this sets up a potential set of targets for a long-term insurgency against Israeli troops.

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