Aid organizations and several world leaders are renewing calls for Israel to rethink its impending military operation on Rafah, warning of widespread destruction and heavy civilian casualties.
Nearly 1.5 million people have crowded into Rafah, the southern Gaza city that was once seen as a last refuge for those attempting to flee fighting elsewhere in the enclave. Before the war, Rafah’s population was estimated to be 280,000. Now, the overwhelmed city is bracing for what Israel has referred to as a “massive operation” meant to “collapse” the remaining Hamas units in the Gaza Strip.
“Military operations in Rafah could lead to a slaughter in Gaza,” Martin Griffiths, the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, warned in a statement on Tuesday.
“The international community has been warning against the dangerous consequences of any ground invasion in Rafah,” he added. “The Government of Israel cannot continue to ignore these calls. History will not be kind.”
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron repeated his calls for Israel to restrain itself in Rafah. “Many of the people in Rafah have already moved three, four or five times. It is not possible for them to move again,” he told lawmakers on Tuesday. “That is why it is so important that the Israelis stop and think before going ahead with any operations in Rafah.”
On Wednesday, the prime ministers of Spain and Ireland sent a joint letter to the European Commission warning of the risk of a “humanitarian catastrophe posed by the imminent threat of Israeli military operations in Rafah.” The two leaders urged the European Union to undertake an urgent review of whether Israel was complying with its obligations to respect international human rights law.
The South African government on Tuesday announced that it had made “an urgent request” for the International Court of Justice to use its authority “to prevent further imminent breach of the rights of Palestinians in Gaza.”
“The South African government said it was gravely concerned that the unprecedented military offensive against Rafah, as announced by the State of Israel, has already led to and will result in further large scale killing, harm and destruction,” the president’s office wrote in a statement.
