Israel Gaza: Netanyahu vows to press ahead with Rafah offensive
Benjamin Netanyahu has said his troops will advance on the Gazan city of Rafah, ignoring pleas to reconsider.
France’s Macron was among those issuing a warning. He told Netanyahu that the human cost of Israel’s operation was “intolerable.”
Netanyahu has ordered his army to prepare for a ground assault.
There are currently around 1.4 million Palestinians crammed into Rafah – which has already been heavily bombarded.
Netanyahu said Israel’s “powerful” assault will continue until Hamas are eliminated from the southern city.
‘Calls for operations to cease’
President Macron phoned Netanyahu on Wednesday to say Israel’s operations in Gaza “must cease”.
He expressed “France’s firm opposition to an Israeli offensive in Rafah, which could only lead to a humanitarian disaster of a new magnitude”.
The prime ministers of Australia, Canada and New Zealand issued a joint statement expressing their “grave concern” that a military operation in Rafah would be “catastrophic”.
“We urge the Israeli government not to go down this path,” the statement read, adding “the impacts on Palestinian civilians from an expanded military operation would be devastating”.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, visiting Israel, warned that people in Rafah with nowhere to go could not “simply vanish into thin air.”
Spain and the Republic of Ireland have asked the EU, of which they are members, to examine “urgently” whether Israel is complying with its human rights obligations in Gaza under an accord linking rights to trade.