Israel began new attacks against more than one million Palestinians living in Rafah city, killing 28 civilians during one strike this Saturday.
In a new phase of deadly attacks against Palestinians, Israel carried out deadly strikes on the southern Gaza border city of Rafah this Saturday, where over one million people live, and in one single attack, killed 28 Palestinians, including ten children. Israel conducted the deadly strike while a few hours earlier, a number of UN-affiliated aid agencies warned that huge numbers of Palestinians could die if Israel moves forward with a planned large-scale military offensive on Rafah.
The city of Rafah is home to some 1.3 million Palestinians, including hundreds of thousands in tent cities. “There is a sense of growing anxiety, growing panic in Rafah,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UNRWA agency, told Reuters. “People have no idea where to go.”
Regardless of the warnings, the Israeli military has announced that the bombardment, siege, and ground operations will continue in Rafah until all of the Palestinian population in the city are forced to leave their homes for good and begin their journey to nowhere.
Israel’s air and ground attacks against Palestinians since October 7 have so far taken the lives of more than 27,000 Palestinians and injured over 67,000 more, the majority of both the dead and the injured being women and children.
The murder story in Gaza becomes even scarier when his huge numbers don’t include those buried under the rubble of apartment blocks and homes destroyed by Israeli airstrikes and shelling. Add to this tragedy the unbearable problems of food, water, and hygiene shortages for the living Palestinians. Initial UN data reveals that “almost one in 10 Gazans under the age of five are now acutely malnourished and live under the threat of famine.”
False claims that take real lives!
Israel’s bloody attacks on Saturday happened while less than a day ago on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Palestinian civilians living in Rafah would be allowed abs able to evacuate the city before Israel began its attacks.
But even Netanyahu himself knows that for over a million population to evacuate Rafah in a matter of days is impossible, let alone doing it in less than 24 hours.
Rebuking Netanyahu for this very reason, UN chief Antonio Guterres said this Saturday that due to Israel’s war on Gaza, half of the 2.3 million population in the Strip “is now crammed into Rafah with nowhere to go,” warning the displaced “have no homes” and “no hope.”
“Attack on Rafah has the potential of creating a massacre of civilians to go down in history as the most barbaric act of the 21st century to date & yet supposedly civilized democracies stand by & claim they can do nothing to prevent it. Future generations will not accept that excuse,” he also noted.
Washington against attacking Rafah!
Netanyahu’s plan to turn the densely populated Rafah into a war zone was not welcomed even by Israel’s most strategic ally, the United States.
Trying to distance itself from Israel’s thirst for continuing the war, the Biden administration issued a statement Saturday and said that it will not support Tel Aviv’s planned assault on Rafah.
“Any major military operation in Rafah at this time, under these circumstances, with more than a million – probably more like a million and a half – Palestinians who are seeking refuge … in Rafah, without due consideration for their safety would be a disaster,” the statement said.
US President Joe Biden also condemned the move and told reporters on the same day that Israel’s military attacks in Rafah have been excessive and are crossing lines. “I’m of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in the Gaza Strip has been over the top,” the president said, adding that a “sustained pause” to the fighting was necessary.
