LAST UPDATE | 42 minutes ago
ISRAEL IS FACING international pressure to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas, as it prepared for an incursion into the southern Gaza city Rafah where more than a million Palestinians are trapped.
China is the latest superpower to urge Israel to stop its military operation in Rafah “as soon as possible”, warning of a “serious humanitarian disaster” there if fighting did not stop.
“China follows closely the developments in the Rafah area, opposes and condemns actions that harm civilians and violate international law,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement.
Beijing urged Israel to “to stop its military operation as soon as possible, (and) make every effort to avoid innocent civilian casualties, in order to prevent a more serious humanitarian disaster in the Rafah area”.
In the southern Gaza border city, more than a million displaced Palestinians are trapped.
Neve Gordon, professor of human rights law at Queen Mary University of London, believes it can be put even more bluntly.
“Rafah itself is a war crime,” says Gordon, vice-president of the British Society for Middle East Studies.
He told The Journal that people “do not have enough food, the sanitation is horrendous”,
Israel conducted a predawn raid in Rafah on Monday that freed two hostages and killed around 100 people, after rejecting Hamas’s terms for a truce last week.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the overnight operation as “perfect”, while the Palestinian foreign ministry said the deaths of dozens of Gazans amounted to a “massacre”.
The rare rescue mission under heavy air strikes came hours after Netanyahu spoke with US President Joe Biden, who reiterated his opposition to a major assault on Rafah.
‘Catastrophic conditions’
The United Nations has also warned Israel against carrying out a ground offensive into Rafah without a plan to protect civilians, who say they have nowhere left to go.
Speaking to reporters in Cork yesterday morning, Tánaiste Micheál Martin said he is in “no doubt” that the continued bombing of Rafah will “constitute a war crime”.
He added that, in his view, it “gravely violates international humanitarian law”.
“To bomb and to mount a military operation in such a confined area, with so many people, is absolutely inhumane, unacceptable, and the international community must do everything it possibly can to put the pressure on Israel not to proceed with this invasion,” Martin said.
He said the attacks will “create catastrophic conditions”.
Yesterday, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron condemned Israel’s attack, urging it to “stop and think seriously before it takes any further action”.
He spoke out about the plight of the people trapped in Rafah, “many of whom have moved four, five six times before getting there”.
“It really, we think, is impossible to see how you can fight a war amongst these people, there is nowhere for them to go,” Cameron said.
CIA Director William Burns was due in Cairo today for a new round of talks on a Qatari-brokered ceasefire proposal that would temporarily halt fighting in exchange for Hamas freeing hostages.
His planned visit comes after Washington and the United Nations warned Israel against carrying out a ground offensive into Rafah without a plan to protect civilians, who say they have nowhere left to go.
After White House talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Monday, US President Joe Biden said civilians in Rafah “need to be protected”.
“Many people there have been displaced — displaced multiple times, fleeing the violence to the north, and now they’re packed into Rafah — exposed and vulnerable,” he said.