THE GOVERNMENT Media Office (GMO) in the Gaza Strip has warned of ‘a catastrophe and a massacre that could leave tens of thousands martyred and wounded if Rafah governorate comes under Israeli attack’, holding ‘the US administration, the international community, and the Israeli occupation fully responsible for it.’
The GMO said, in a press statement on Saturday: ‘Israeli media have recently been reporting on the Israeli occupation army’s intention and threats to attack and invade Rafah Governorate, south of the Gaza Strip, which includes 1,400,000 Palestinian citizens with 1,300,000 of them displaced from other governorates.
‘This sets the alarm to an imminent catastrophe and an unprecedented massacre that could leave tens of thousands as martyrs and wounded.’
The GMO held ‘the US administration, the international community, and Israel fully responsible for the catastrophe and bloodbath that would result from the Israeli invasion of Rafah, in conjunction with thousands of massacres that have been carried out by the Israeli occupation army in other governorates of the Gaza Strip over the course of the genocidal war’.
The Office called on the UN Security Council to ‘convene immediately and urgently to make a decision that guarantees the obligation of the Israeli occupation to stop the genocidal war it is committing against civilians, children and women in the Gaza Strip and to stop the ongoing plans to attack Rafah Governorate along with other governorates’.
The Israeli occupation army has been waging its brutal aggression against the beleaguered Gaza Strip for 127 days in a row with US and European support, leading to the killing of 27,947 citizens and injuring 67,459 others, in addition to the enforced displacement of more than 85 per cent (about 1.9 million people) of the Strip’s population, according to official authorities and international bodies and organisations.
- Any Israeli ground offensive on Rafah will ‘blow up’ the captive exchange negotiations, Al-Aqua television channel quoted a senior Hamas leader as saying on Sunday.
- The Omani Foreign Ministry said: ‘We appeal to the international community to take concrete measures to dissuade Israel from its arrogance and push it to cease fire and open the crossings.’
- Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said: ‘People of Gaza cannot simply disappear into thin air. An Israeli offensive on Rafah would be a humanitarian catastrophe.’
- Ireland Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said: ‘It is absolutely clear that a military operation in Rafah, which has effectively now become one of the largest and most overcrowded refugee camps in the world, would entail grave violations of international humanitarian law. All countries, including all EU Member States, must demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. There can be no further equivocation.’