Saudi Arabia has warned of “extremely dangerous repercussions” if Israel launched an offensive towards the southern city of Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, where thousands of Palestinians have sought refuge from the Israel-Hamas war.
The Kingdom’s foreign ministry in a statement Saturday said that “Rafah represents the last refuge for hundreds of thousands of civilians who the brutal Israeli aggression have forced to flee.”
The kingdom said “it stresses it is complete refusal and strong condemnation of the forcible displacement [of Palestinians] and renews calls for an immediate ceasefire.
“The deliberate violations to international and humanitarian laws stresses the need for the United Nations Security Council to meet soon to prevent Israel from causing an imminent humanitarian disaster.”
The UN says about half of Gaza’s 2.4 million people are now sheltering in the city, with many sleeping outside in tents and makeshift shelters, and mounting concern about lack of food, water and sanitation.
On Friday, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said a major Israeli offensive in Rafah “can only lead to an additional layer of endless tragedy.”
Netanyahu has ordered military officials to draw up plans for “evacuating” Rafah alongside “destroying” Hamas fighters in the city.
Witnesses reported new strikes on Rafah early Saturday, raising fears among Palestinians of a looming ground invasion.
Hamas said in a statement that any military action would have catastrophic repercussion that “may lead to tens of thousands of martyrs and injured if Rafah... is invaded.”
Israeli strikes on Gaza’s Rafah escalate fears of ground operation
Israeli air strikes killed 17 people in Gaza's Rafah overnight, medics said on Saturday, as over a million Palestinians cramming into the border city await a full-blown offensive with the rest of their enclave in ruins and nowhere left to run.
Unlike in previous Israeli assaults on cities during the war, when the military ordered civilians to flee south, no other relatively unscathed area remains in tiny Gaza and aid agencies have warned that large numbers of civilians could die.
"Any Israeli incursion in Rafah means massacres, means destruction. People are filling every inch of the city and we have nowhere to go," said Rezik Salah, 35, who fled his Gaza City home with his wife and two children for Rafah early in the war.
Witnesses reported new strikes on Rafah early Saturday, after the Israeli military intensified air raids, with fears rising among Palestinians of a coming ground invasion.
“We don’t know where to go,” said Mohammad Al-Jarrah, a Palestinian who was displaced from further north to Rafah.
Hamas on Saturday warned in a statement that any military action would have catastrophic repercussion that “may lead to tens of thousands of martyrs and injured if Rafah... is invaded”.
The Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip said it would hold "the American administration, international community and the Israeli occupation" responsible if that happened.
The city is the last major population center in the Gaza Strip that Israeli troops have yet to enter and also the main point of entry for desperately needed relief supplies.
Netanyahu told military officials on Friday to “submit to the cabinet a combined plan for evacuating the population and destroying the battalions” of Hamas militants holed up in Rafah, his office said.
The US State Department said it does not support a ground offensive in Rafah, warning that, if not properly planned, such an operation risks “disaster.”
The United States is Israel’s main international backer, providing it with billions of dollars in military aid.
But in a sign of growing frustration, US President Joe Biden issued his strongest criticism of Israel yet, describing the retaliation for Hamas’s October 7 attack as going too far.
“I’m of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in Gaza, in the Gaza Strip, has been over the top,” the US president said.
“There are a lot of innocent people who are starving... in trouble and dying, and it’s got to stop.”
Displaced Palestinians have flooded into Rafah, where hundreds of thousands are sleeping in tents pushed up against the Egyptian border.
AFP images showed scenes of devastation, with people queuing for increasingly scarce water.
Rights groups have sounded alarm at the prospect of a ground incursion.
“Israel’s declared ground offensive on Rafah would be catastrophic and must not proceed,” Doctors Without Borders said in a statement. “There is no place that is safe in Gaza and no way for people to leave.”
The Hamas-run territory’s health ministry on Saturday said that at least 110 people were killed in overnight bombardment, including 25 in strikes in Rafah.
The previous day, the Palestinian Red Crescent said that three children were killed in a strike in Rafah.
“We heard the sound of a huge explosion next to our house... we found two children martyred in the street,” said Jaber Al-Bardini, 60.
“There is no safe place in Rafah. If they storm Rafah, we will die in our homes.” Israeli forces raided Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s biggest city, on Friday after a weeks-long siege during which the Palestinian Red Crescent has reported “intense artillery shelling and heavy gunfire.”
The medical organization said Israeli forces had arrested eight of its team members at the hospital, including “four doctors, as well as four wounded individuals and five patients’ companions.”
UN chief Antonio Guterres has said any Israeli push into Rafah “would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare.”
But Netanyahu’s office said it would be “impossible” to achieve the war’s objective of eliminating Hamas while leaving four of the militants’ battalions in Rafah.
Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
In response, Israel vowed to eradicate Hamas and launched air strikes and a ground offensive that have killed at least 27,947 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Militants seized 250 hostages, 132 of whom are still in Gaza, but 29 are presumed dead, Israel has said.
State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel said an Israeli ground operation in Rafah was “not something we’d support.” “To conduct such an operation right now with no planning and little thought... would be a disaster,” Patel warned.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had conveyed Washington’s concerns to Netanyahu directly during talks this week in Jerusalem, he added.
On the ceasefire talks, Blinken said he still saw “space for agreement to be reached” to halt the fighting and bring home Israeli hostages, even after Netanyahu rejected what he labelled Hamas’s “bizarre demands.”
Hamas negotiators left Cairo on Friday after what a Hamas source described as “positive and good discussions” with Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
“The delegation left Cairo tonight (Friday) and is awaiting Israel’s response,” a Hamas official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak on the issue.
The impact of the war has been felt widely, with violence involving Iran-backed allies of Hamas surging across the Middle East and drawing in US forces among others.
Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said Friday it had fired dozens of rockets at an army position in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, hours after launching a salvo at northern Israel.
In the early hours of Saturday, Israeli strikes targeted the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the official Syrian press agency, which reported “material” damage.
Due to the ongoing war and risk of wider consequences, the US ratings agency Moody’s downgraded Israel’s credit rating on Friday, and also lowered its outlook for Israel’s debt to “negative” due to “the risk of an escalation” with Hezbollah.
Israel’s former finance minister turned opposition MP Avigdor Lieberman attributed the downgrading to the Netanyahu government’s “populist” measures.
“The government of destruction continues to degenerate us into an economic disaster just as it brought us into a security disaster,” he wrote on social media platform X.
Donate for Palestine
| BANK | Account Number |
| BANK BRI: | 001201247978508 |
| BANK BCA : | 0952397051 |
| BANK BNI : | 1791507534 |
| BANK RAYA : | 001001424796315 |
| HANA's BANK : | 14755057480 |
| Bank Mandiri : | 1330027242122 |
|
DIGIBANK : Foreign Currency A.N |
2074864818 |
| Confirm : | ahahanafiah5@gmail.com |
No comments:
Post a Comment