Expansion of the offensive
Israel calls on more civilians to leave Rafah
May 11, 2024, 11:55 a.m
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According to the UN, the situation in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, is already “on a knife edge”. Aid supplies have hardly been able to cross the border since Israel’s military occupied the only crossing into Egypt. Apparently, despite all the international criticism, an expansion of the offensive is imminent.
The Israeli army has urged residents of Rafah to leave additional areas in the southern Gaza city. In a message distributed by the military in Arabic via Platform X and in the form of text messages, the armed forces listed the affected zones, including two refugee camps. People in these areas must immediately go to the town of Al-Mawasi on the Mediterranean coast, it said.
The request indicates that the military intends to expand its operations against positions and combat units of the Islamist Hamas in the city on the border with Egypt. The operation, which has been ongoing since the beginning of the week, is controversial. According to the UN, more than a million people who have fled the fighting in other parts of the Gaza Strip are currently crowded in Rafah.
The US, Israel’s most important ally, has issued a strong warning against a large-scale offensive in Rafah. US President Joe Biden recently even threatened to restrict arms deliveries. According to their own statements, the Israeli leadership wants to destroy the last battalions of the Islamist Hamas believed to be there in Rafah. UN Secretary-General António Guterres also warned urgently about the humanitarian consequences of such an offensive. “The situation in Rafah is on a knife edge,” Guterres said. “A massive ground attack in Rafah would result in a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions and undermine our efforts to support people facing the threat of famine.”
Fuel is running low
In another urgent application to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, South Africa demanded that the court must persuade Israel to take further steps to prevent genocide against the Palestinians. Israel’s army must immediately withdraw from Rafah. France called on Israel to immediately end the operation in Rafah. The Foreign Ministry in Paris warned on Friday evening that there was a risk of a catastrophic situation for the civilian population in the city, which was overcrowded with refugees.
Humanitarian aid workers are now reporting devastating conditions in Rafah. Hospitals would have to suspend their services within 24 hours unless urgently needed new fuel was delivered. The Rafah border crossing into Egypt, through which aid deliveries have previously reached the coastal strip, remains closed since the Israeli army took control of the Palestinian side on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Hamas said it had repeatedly attacked the Kerem Shalom border crossing. Israel accused the Islamist organization of trying to prevent aid deliveries from reaching Gaza. The border crossing was only reopened after being closed for several days. Some of the fuel deliveries were made from there, but according to the UN, no food deliveries would be permitted, the New York Times newspaper reported.
One reason for this is that Egypt, where most aid for the Gaza Strip is collected and loaded, is refusing to allow trucks to continue from the closed Rafah crossing to Kerem Shalom, the newspaper quoted American and Israeli officials as saying. They therefore believed that Egypt was trying to put pressure on Israel to withdraw its troops from Rafah.