The Editorial Board

Wall Street Journal

But Cairo won’t let Palestinians enter from its Rafah crossing.

Israel’s defensive operation in Gaza will be difficult and bloody, as the military tries to weed Hamas terrorists out of a densely populated urban environment. Lest American or European politicians or commentators suffer any confusion about who is ultimately responsible for what comes next, here are a few facts:

Israel’s military on Friday warned roughly 1.1 million civilians to evacuate the northern part of the Gaza strip. The hope is to minimize civilian casualties as much as possible. This is the opposite of Hamas’s strategy in its invasion last weekend, when terrorists staged a surprise assault with an explicit goal of killing or abducting as many Israeli civilians as possible, including women and children.

If Hamas cared about Palestinian civilians, it would encourage them to leave Gaza. But instead it is demanding that they remain. The terror group intends to use its own people and the hostages it abducted from Israel as human shields. Their hope is that either Israeli concern about causing collateral damage or global opprobrium will force Israel to scale back its counter-invasion.

Egypt is the only place to which Gaza’s civilians can flee for now. Yet Cairo insists on maintaining its strict quota for entries from Gaza via the Rafah crossing—with only 800 able to leave on Monday, and the crossing reportedly closed in recent days.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi bears no warm feelings toward Hamas, which is allied with the Muslim Brotherhood that tried to impose an Islamist regime in his country not too long ago. He’s concerned that Hamas terrorists might slip across the border into Egypt with a tide of civilians.

One way to reduce that possibility would be to house refugees in camps while they’re vetted for Hamas ties. The rest of the world should support a United Nations effort to help. But taking on this practical and financial burden is a risk Mr. Sisi may not want to take two months before Egypt holds what pass for elections there.

The timing is bad for Mr. Sisi, but unless he budges Egypt will become partly responsible for what could become a terrible humanitarian crisis—and that’s if Israel succeeds in rooting out Hamas. If Hamas’s strategy succeeds and Israel is forced by international pressure to scale back its defensive operations, Egypt will have to live with an entrenched and emboldened Hamas on the other side of the Rafah crossing.

That also is a good reason for Egypt’s international partners to encourage Mr. Sisi to open the crossing. The U.S. supplies billions of dollars in aid to Cairo each year. It’s reasonable for Washington to expect such a large aid recipient to help break Hamas’s stranglehold over Gaza’s civilians when doing so is in Egypt’s, Israel’s and America’s interests.

As for the situation in Gaza, leaders in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere owe their public honesty about whatever happens in the coming days—including who bears responsibility for civilian casualties.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Friday offered a template for her peers:

“Hamas brings nothing but suffering and death to the people—in Israel and in Gaza. It is Hamas’s perfidious strategy to use the civilian population as a human shield. Terrorism’s cynical plan must not be allowed to take hold. Civilians need safe spaces where they can find protection and have their essential needs met.”

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