Whiplash. We woke up on Monday morning to the news that Israel was warning Palestinians residing in the eastern sector of Rafah, the last remaining Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip, to evacuate ahead of an imminent invasion. Several hours later, it was widely reported that Hamas leaders had agreed to a hostage swap/ceasefire proposal hammered out by negotiators in Egypt and Qatar over the weekend. Yet, by midafternoon, IDF troops had commenced their invasion. By Tuesday morning, they had taken control of the Rafah crossing into Egypt.
So what the heck happened? It turns out that, unbeknownst to the Israelis, rather than agreeing to the conditions they had previously signed off on, Hamas had instead submitted a counterproposal. Worse still, sources told Axios that
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