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A lot happens every day. Alliances shift, leaders change, and conflicts erupt. With In Brief, we’ll help you make sense of it all. Each week, experts will dig deep on a single issue happening in the world to help you better understand it.***Tensions between the United States and Israel are growing as the humanitarian situation in Gaza grows increasingly dire and Israel insists it will push ahead with a planned military operation into Rafah, where an estimated 1.5 Palestinians are sheltering. In Northern Gaza, according to the United Nations, famine is imminent and 70 percent of people are already facing extreme levels of hunger. We asked four experts to tell us more about the tensions between Israel and the United States, the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and what will happen if Israel goes ahead with its Rafah operation.Read more below.Michael Koplow Chief Policy Officer Israel Policy ForumThe United States has not yet withdrawn material support for Israel’s military operation, but the Biden administration’s refusal to give a green light to a full-scale operation in Rafah is a combination of substantive concerns over the plight of civilians and the way in which an operation will worsen an already devastating humanitarian crisis. Israeli leaders across the political spectrum are determined that a Rafah operation must go forward in order to defeat the four Hamas battalions (out of six remaining in total) in the city, which will both signal that Hamas’ military capability has been fatally damaged and also ensure that Israel can seal the porous border between Gaza and Egypt. The United States can delay the operation, building on its current tactic of public warnings and private consultations with visiting Israeli officials in Washington, but Israel will ultimately conduct an operation of some sort. The outstanding question is not whether it will happen, but whether the two