Zionists brace for Rafah invasion
UN chief warns invasion would ‘put final nail in the coffin’ of aid operations
Zionist entity said Monday its army had readied a plan to evacuate Gazans ahead of a feared invasion of far-southern Rafah, which the UN chief warned would “put the final nail in the coffin” of aid operations. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that Rafah—where 1.4 million Palestinians live in crowded shelters near the Egyptian border—is also “the core of the humanitarian aid operation” in the besieged Gaza Strip.
In another shock impact of the almost five-month-old war, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh in the occupied West Bank handed in his government’s resignation to the head of the Palestinian Authority, president Mahmud Abbas.
Shtayyeh cited “the new reality in the Gaza Strip” and “the escalation in the West Bank and Jerusalem”, where deadly violence has surged since the Zionist entity war on Gaza which began on Oct 7. Zionist entity’s top ally Washington and other powers discussing a post-war Gaza have called for a reformed Palestinian Authority to take charge of both the West Bank and Gaza, which has been ruled by Hamas since 2007.
Shtayyeh urged intra-Palestinian consensus after years of rift and the “extension of the Authority’s rule over the entire land of Palestine”. Heavy fighting raged on in Gaza, where Zionist entity forces launched strikes and ground operations, killing 92 people overnight according to the Hamasruled territory’s health ministry. Displaced Gazan Sharif Muammar said he had helped to pull his son’s body of from the rubble in Rafah. “There was no one here—only children, they are all children,” he told AFP. “There were no fighters at all. We weren’t launching missiles... We barely live.”
Zionist entity’s military campaign has killed at least 29,782 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the ministry. The war broke out after Hamas launched their unprecedented attack which killed 1,160 people in Zionist entity, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Zionist entity Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed Sunday that, despite ongoing talks toward a ceasefire, the army will launch a ground invasion of Rafah to achieve “total victory” over Hamas. Once land operations are launched there, a Zionist entity victory would be “weeks away”, he said, adding that any truce deal would delay, not prevent, the operation.
On Monday Netanyahu’s office said the military had shown Zionist entity’s war cabinet its plan for evacuating civilians from Rafah. But no details have been released on where those displaced people could go in war-torn Gaza. Neighboring Egypt has built a large walled enclosure next to Gaza, but Cairo has denied any plans to allow the mass flight of refugees across the border.
Foreign governments and aid groups have issued dire warnings that a Rafah invasion would inflict mass casualties. Guterres warned “an all-out Zionist entity offensive on the city would not only be terrifying for more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there; it would put the final nail in the coffin of our aid programs”. He said that “nothing can justify Hamas’s deliberate killing, injuring, torturing and kidnapping of civilians” and “nothing justifies the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
Desperate families in Gaza’s north have had to scavenge for food as most aid trucks have been halted there, with many people eating animal fodder and the meat of slaughtered horses. “We have no food or drink for ourselves or our children,” Omar Al-Kahlout told AFP, as he waited near Gaza City for aid trucks to arrive. Amid the spiraling crisis, the UN aid agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, has urged political action to avert famine.
Dire food shortages in northern Gaza are “a man-made disaster” that can be mitigated, said Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA chief. “Famine can still be avoided through genuine political will to grant access and protection to meaningful assistance.” Aid entering Gaza has halved in February from the previous month, he said. Mediators meanwhile continued stuttering negotiations towards a ceasefire and hostage release deal, with hopes it can be in place before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in about two weeks. Media reports suggest the warring parties are weighing a six-week halt to fighting and the initial exchange of dozens of hostages for several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Zionist entity.