PA says US support ‘encourages’ Netanyahu to defy international law

A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday that without US support, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wouldn’t have dared to defy international law by persisting in his country’s genocide against the Palestinian people, Wafa has reported.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh made his comment in response to Netanyahu’s vow to continue the war in Gaza and invade the city of Rafah where nearly 1.7 million Palestinians are taking refuge.

“The blind US bias towards Israel, which shields it from accountability and international legitimacy, proves that the US administration has become a partner in Netanyahu’s crimes, which have claimed the lives of thousands of our people,” said Abu Rudeineh. “The US administration bears full responsibility for the continuation of these genocidal crimes.”

The Palestinian official called on the Biden administration to compel the Israeli occupation authorities to halt the aggression, and to prevent Israel from invading Rafah. “Such an invasion would have extremely grave consequences for the entire region and the world.” He also urged the international community to intervene and hold Israel to account for its violations of international law and resolutions.

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Earlier on Tuesday, Netanyahu said that the Israeli army will enter Rafah “with or without” a prisoner exchange agreement with Hamas, according to his office. The Israeli leader told representatives of the families of Israeli prisoners in Gaza, that “stopping the war before achieving all its goals is out of the question.”

Israeli officials insist that the small city in the south of Gaza is “the last stronghold of the Hamas movement,” despite increasing international warnings of catastrophic repercussions of a full-scale invasion. According to the Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Tel Aviv will decide “within hours” about its military operation in Rafah, or agreeing on a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas.

When Hamas carried out a cross-border incursion on 7 October, around 1,200 Israelis were killed, many of them by Israel Defence Forces tanks and helicopters. Just over 250 hostages were taken back to Gaza. Israel’s subsequent military offensive has to-date killed 35,000 Palestinians, most of them children and women, and wounded 70,000 more. An estimated 8,000 Palestinians are missing, presumed dead, under the rubble of their homes destroyed by Israel.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lie in ruins, pushing 85 per cent of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN. Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza. South Africa, which took the apartheid state to the ICJ, has since claimed that Israel is ignoring the court’s ruling. Israel denies all charges against it.

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