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UN official warns of regional spillover as Israel attacks Rafah

May 30, 2024 at 10:40 am

Tor Wennesland, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process speaks to press at Security Council stakeout at UN Headquarters on 28 November 2022 [Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images]

The expansion of Israel’s ground operation in and around Rafah in the southern besieged Gaza Strip is only intensifying and the risk of a regional conflict being launched, the United Nations Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, warned.

Speaking during a Security Council briefing on the situation in the Middle East yesterday, Wennesland said more than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, in addition to the injury of tens of thousands of others and the displacement of about two million Palestinians from their homes, many of them multiple times.

He warned that as Israel continues its aggression on Rafah, Gazans face another round of mass displacement, with at least one million having to flee Rafah where they had taken shelter after being ordered to do so by the Israeli occupation.

“Overcrowded conditions and acute shortages of food, water and medicine have led to misery and the spread of disease. The humanitarian response is woefully inadequate to address these needs,” he added.

He explained that the only way to address the humanitarian and security challenges in Palestine involves a broader approach that addresses Gaza’s political future as an integral part of a single, unified Palestinian state, which is a crucial foundation for realising a two-state solution.

Israel has continued its brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip since 7 October, 2023.

Nearly eight months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of “genocide” at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which in its latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on 6 May.

READ: ‘There is no time to waste’: UN Mideast envoy calls for immediate ceasefire in Gaza