“The European Union urges Israel to immediately cease its military operation in Rafah”, the continuation of which “would inevitably put a strain on the EU’s relationship with Israel”, indicates the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, in a press release . Tens of thousands of civilians continued to flee on Wednesday the town of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, shelled by Israel and threatened with a major ground offensive.
The EU also calls on Israel to “refrain from further aggravating the already disastrous humanitarian situation in Gaza”, and to “reopen” the Rafah crossing point. More than a million civilians, refugees in Rafah, have received orders to evacuate to areas that the UN does not consider “safe”, further denounces the EU, the main donor of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.
Humanitarian aid blocked at the Egyptian border
The Israeli army entered Rafah with tanks on May 7. Since then, the border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt has remained closed, even though it is crucial for convoys transporting aid to a population threatened with famine in Gaza according to the UN. Israeli military operations in Rafah “lead to more population displacement, risk of famine and human suffering”, the EU also deplored in this text.
In the eighth month of the war triggered on October 7 by an unprecedented attack on Israeli soil by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, 35,173 people have died in the Gaza Strip, the majority civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
The October 7 attack carried out by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza in southern Israel resulted in the death of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP report established from official Israeli data. More than 250 people were kidnapped during the attack and 128 remain captive in Gaza, of whom 36 are believed to have died, according to the army.