Israel’s War Cabinet mulls Rafah evacuation
Israel is planning to expand the ground operation to Rafah, home of 1.4mn Palestinians
Jerusalem - The Israeli War Cabinet discussed a plan to evacuate residents of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip in preparation to expand the ground offensive.
The army ‘presented the War Cabinet with a plan for evacuating the population from the areas of fighting in the Gaza Strip, and with the upcoming operational plan’, Israeli Prime Minister office said on Monday in a statement on X. The statement did not specify the areas, but the Israeli newspaper Times of Israel said the discussion was about Rafah.
“In addition, the plan for providing humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip in a manner that will prevent the looting that has occurred in the northern Strip and other areas was approved,” the statement added, without providing further details.
Israel is planning to expand the ground operation to Rafah, home of 1.4mn Palestinians, amid international warnings about the consequences of such a move.
‘Final nail in coffin’
UN Secretary-general Antonio Guterres, meanwhile, on Monday warned that an all-out Israeli offensive in Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering, would put an end to the UN assistance programmes. “Rafah is the core of the humanitarian aid operation, and UNRWA is the backbone of that effort,” Guterres told the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
“An all-out Israeli 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 programmes.”
“I repeat my call for a humanitarian ceasefire and the immediate and unconditional release of
all hostages,” he urged.
Stressing that the UN Security Council is often ‘deadlocked, unable to act on the most significant peace and security issues of our time’, he said: “The Council’s lack of unity on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and on Israel’s military operations in Gaza following the horrific terror attacks by Hamas on 7 October, has severely - perhaps fatally - undermined its authority.”
The UN chief emphasised that the council needs ‘serious reform’ to its composition and working methods and said: “We urgently need a new commitment to all human rights - civil, cultural, economic, political and social - as they apply to peace and security, backed by serious efforts at implementation and accountability.”
“We cannot, we must not, become numb to appalling and repeated violations of international humanitarian and human rights law,” Guterres added.
He said that the Summit of the Future - where the new agenda for peace is to be discussed - in September is the opportunity for such a recommitment.
The agenda applies a human rights lens to preventing and ending violence in all its forms, according to the secretary-general.
‘Catastrophic, tragic’
Reiterating the call for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, the Spanish foreign minister on Monday said that the situation in Gaza is ‘catastrophic, dramatic, tragic’. “At the European and multilateral level, we have presented specific proposals to make headway in the two large crises that we’re experiencing … in which we see unacceptable violations of human rights in both of them in Ukraine and in Gaza,” Jose Manuel Albares told the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Expressing his country’s stance, he noted that Spain is committed to peace in the Middle East, peace among Israelis and Palestinians.
An all-out Israeli offensive on the city would put the final nail in the coffin of our aid programmes
ANTONIO GUTERRES