Offensive in Rafah

UN emergency aid coordinator fears “carnage”

Tent camp in Rafah(Bild: APA/AFP/Mahmud Hams)

Israel's military has planned a military offensive in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. "I fear a slaughter of people in Gaza," wrote UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths on Platform X. More than half of the population of the Gaza Strip is "crammed together there."

The people there have "little to eat, hardly any access to medical care, nowhere to sleep and nowhere safe to go." "They, like the entire population of Gaza, are victims of an attack that is unprecedented in its intensity, brutality and scope," said UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths. 

You can see the tweet here.

The international community had also already warned of the dangerous consequences of a ground invasion in Rafah. Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to present his government with plans for an offensive in Rafah and for the evacuation of the local population (see video above). The combat units of the Islamist Hamas must be destroyed.

Tent camp in Rafah(Bild: APA/AFP/Mahmud Hams)

Explosive devices in the north
"Evacuation to where? There is no safe place in Gaza," said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Palestinian Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The north is littered with explosive devices that have not yet exploded, which is why the population cannot be taken there. People had already fled several times within the coastal area. More than 100,000 people had either been killed or injured or were missing.

Meanwhile, the governments of Canada, Australia and New Zealand have issued a joint statement calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. "Palestinian civilians cannot be made to pay the price of a victory over Hamas," it reads in part.