UNICEF warns against military operation in Rafah

UNICEF has warned against a military operation in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza, where over 600,000 children and their families – around a million people – have been displaced under the pressure of over four months of devastating war.

“An escalation of the fighting in Rafah, which is already straining under the extraordinary number of people who have been displaced from other parts of Gaza, will mark another devastating turn in a war that has reportedly killed over 27,000 people – most of them women and children,” Catherine Russell, the agency’s executive director, said in a statement on yesterday.

Calling on parties to the conflict to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law, she added: “Military operations in densely populated residential areas can have indiscriminate effects.”

The statement came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to move Israel’s genocidal military operations into Rafah, saying the war on Gaza will continue until Israel can claim “total victory” against Hamas.

On Thursday, the US also warned that an Israeli military operation in Rafah “would be a disaster” for the more than one million displaced Palestinians sheltering there.

Read: Israel forces intensify Rafah strikes as diplomats seek to salvage Gaza truce