Gaza, 26 April 2024 (TDI): Located in the southern Gaza Strip city, lies Rafah, where Israel’s military is ready to evacuate Palestinian civilians and assault Hamas hideouts, a senior Israeli defense official reported, regardless of there being international warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Moreover, a spokesperson for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has reported that the country was going ahead with a ground operation, however, it did not give a timeline.
Attack on southern Gaza Strip
A defense official has said that Israel’s Defense Ministry had bought 40,000 tents, each holding a capacity of 10 to 12 people, to provide shelter for Palestinians relocated from the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, leading to an assault.
There has been a video circulating the web that projects rows of square white tents being positioned in Khan Younis, a city that is 5 KM from Rafah.
In addition to this, an Israeli government source has reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet has scheduled to meet in the coming weeks to authorize civilian evacuations, which is expected to take about a month.
Rafah, which lies next to the Egyptian border, is housing more than a million Palestinians who fled the Israeli onslaught through the remaining parts of Gaza and say the likelihood of fleeing again is terror-stricken.
Annihilating Hamas
Israel maintains that Rafah is home to four Hamas combat battalions, that are strengthened by thousands of retreating fighters, claiming it must defeat them to triumph.
However, Israel’s closest ally, Washington has said that the country should defuse its plans for an attack, saying that Israel can fight against Hamas by other means.
“We could not support a Rafah ground operation without an appropriate, credible, executable humanitarian plan precisely because of the complications for delivery of assistance,” David Satterfield, US special envoy for Middle East humanitarian, reported.
Moreover, Egypt has reported that it would not allow the people of Gaza to be forced into its territory, with Cairo warning Israel against moving to the southern Gaza City strip of Rafah, which “would lead to massive human massacres, losses, and widespread destruction”, its State Information Service reported.
Israel has extracted most of its ground troops from southern Gaza this month but has sustained airstrikes and carried out raids into areas its troops abandoned. Efforts by the US, Egypt, and Qatar to call for an extended ceasefire amid the potential attack on Rafah, have so far failed.
Also Read: UNRWA briefs UNSC as Gaza humanitarian crisis worsens
UN stance on Rafah
The UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk has denounced the latest spate of Israeli attacks on Gaza that has mostly killed women and children, warning that an invasion on the ground would be violating international human rights law.
“The latest images of a premature child taken from the womb of her dying mother, of the adjacent two houses where 15 children and five women were killed, this is beyond warfare,” reported the UN High Commissioner Volker Turk.
UN High Commissioner Volker Turk has also reported that a complete ground invasion would result in more deaths, injuries, and displacement on a large scale. He states that the leaders of the world stand together on the notion of safeguarding the civilian population trapped in Rafah.
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