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French President Emmanuel Macron said in a telephone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday that Israel was at risk of a “humanitarian disaster of a new scale.”a Joint statement The leaders of Australia, Canada and New Zealand said “a military operation against Rafah would be devastating” and called on Israel to “listen to its friends”. The prime ministers of Spain and Ireland have written to authorities in Brussels, suggesting that Israel may be in breach of its association agreement with the European Union and demanding an “urgent review”.
U.N. officials say the conflict, which has already killed more than 27,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and destroyed much of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, involves serious violations of international law and potential He said the possibility of a war crime was increasing. “The risk of atrocities being committed in the event of a full-scale military invasion of Rafah is serious, real and high,” Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, said in a statement. Stated.
Martin Griffiths, the United Nations’ top humanitarian official, said the prospect of an Israeli ground attack puts his organization’s relief efforts at “death’s door” and could lead to a massacre of civilians. “The international community has warned of the dangerous consequences of a ground invasion of Rafah,” he added. “The Israeli government cannot continue to ignore these calls. History will not be kind.”
The White House has become more cautious in its public messages, but it’s perplexing. Israel hopes to carry out targeted operations only against Hamas in the city. As my colleague pointed out, President Biden has said that the administration will not support a full-scale attack on Rafah without a “credible plan” from Israel to evacuate harmed Palestinian civilians. Ta. There are currently no such concrete plans. Talk of a “safe zone” along the coast in the area known as al-Mawasi has proven to be largely conceptual, with civilians without shelter or reliable access to food. They are crouched down in poor conditions.
Egypt has fortified its border with Gaza and does not want 1 million Palestinian refugees flocking there. This is not only due to national security concerns, but also due to long-standing concerns among Arabs that this would foster de facto ethnic conflict. Israel’s cleanup of Gaza. Still, as my colleagues reported on Thursday, satellite images show that Egypt is building a concrete wall around large tracts of land along its border. This could be the site of a potential refugee camp.
“If the result of an attack is [in Rafah] With tens of thousands of Palestinians crossing the border, do you think the Egyptian army will shoot them? The answer is no,” a former Egyptian official told my colleague. “Responsible governments need to think about how they would deal with the worst-case scenario.”
U.S., Arab and Israeli interlocutors are still debating the possibility of an agreement with Hamas that would at least result in a pause in fighting and the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Prime Minister Netanyahu described Hamas’s demands as “delusional” and vowed to destroy the extremist group, dismissing the possibility of a diplomatic breakthrough.
“We will fight until complete victory.This includes powerful actions even in Rapha After allowing civilians to leave the combat zone,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said on Wednesday. My colleagues reported that there was speculation that “Prime Minister Netanyahu’s threat against Rafah is a diplomatic diversion aimed at pressuring Hamas to accept the deal.” The Israeli negotiating team’s departure from talks in Cairo on Tuesday sparked anger among hostage families in Israel. Small-scale protests against Prime Minister Netanyahu and his war cabinet took place throughout the week.
The Israeli prime minister has also frustrated the White House by refusing to engage in serious discussions about post-war scenarios. The Biden administration, with the tacit support of many influential Arab governments, has struck a grand deal that provides for both the reconstruction of Gaza, the restoration of a political path toward a Palestinian state, and deeper integration of Israel into the region. I’m planning it.
“The key issue in the planning room is Israel and whether that government will acquiesce to much of what is currently being discussed, namely the withdrawal of many, if not all, settler communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. the Palestinian capital in , the reconstruction of Gaza, and security and governance arrangements for the combined West Bank and Gaza,” my colleagues reported on Wednesday. “We also hope that Israel will be offered concrete security that is hard to refuse and normalization of diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.”
But Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office responded the next day, dismissing any talk of such a deal. Prime Minister Netanyahu has long opposed the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel. “This is Israel. We are still in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre,” Abi Heyman, a spokesman for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office, told Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “Now is the time for victory, a complete victory over Hamas. And we will continue on the path to victory. All discussions about Hamas the next day will take place on Hamas the next day.”
Serious analysts, including members of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s own war cabinet, believe that Israel will never be able to completely eradicate Hamas. However, it has caused untold harm to civilians and created a humanitarian crisis unprecedented in its combination of scale and speed. Critics also blame the Biden administration for its unwillingness to use any influence to rein in Prime Minister Netanyahu.
“America’s pressure on Israel must go beyond harsh words and leaked angry conversations,” wrote Michael Hanna of the International Crisis Group. “The United States today has forcibly seized large parts of the Gaza Strip and is complicit in the destruction of Gazan society. But even at this late stage, we must make choices and avoid further catastrophe. ”
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