Tehran Times – Israel has carried out a ground incursion on the eastern part of Rafah despite global concerns over the fate of some 1.5 million Palestinian civilians who have been crammed into the southernmost city of the Gaza Strip. Israeli troops seized control of the Rafah border crossing early Tuesday.
The Israeli military said its tanks entered the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing, which links the besieged Palestinian territory with Egypt, and took “operational control” of the crucial border point. Israel’s move has led to the closure of a route vital for the aid entering Gaza.
Israel claims that the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement has used the crossing to attack Israeli forces. It said Hamas fighters near the crossing launched a mortar attack that killed four soldiers on the Karem Abu Salem crossing, known as Kerem Shalom to Israelis. But the regime has failed to provide any evidence to back up its assertion.
On Monday, Israel ordered about 100,000 Palestinians in parts of eastern Rafah to evacuate to an “expanded humanitarian area” in Khan Younis and al-Mawasi. The majority of people, who are now in Rafah, have sought refuge there from Israeli offensives in other parts of the Gaza Strip.
They are living in the city amid poor conditions with little shelter, food, or medicine. The closure of the crossing will undoubtedly exacerbate the humanitarian situation there.
Aid shipments have been halted due to the closure of the crossing; three humanitarian relief agencies told Reuters.
Israel has largely restricted the entry of essentials such as food and medicine to Gaza since launching war on the territory on October 7.
UN experts have said that the regime is deliberately starving Gaza’s 2.3 million population.
On Sunday, the head of the United Nations World Food Program painted a bleak picture of the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Cindy McCain told NBC News that northern Gaza has entered “full-blown famine”. He added that famine was now moving south in Gaza.
The Israeli assault on Rafah has drawn global reactions.
UN denied access
A spokesman for the UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, said the world body has no access to the closed Rafah crossing.
“We currently do not have any physical presence at the Rafah crossing as our access… has been denied by COGAT,” Jens Laerke told a press conference in Geneva, referring to the Israeli agency that oversees supplies into the Palestinian territories.
“We have been told there will be no crossings of personnel or goods in or out for the time being. That has a massive impact on how much stock do we have,” he explained.
The World Health Organization also reacted to the closure of the crossing. The UN agency noted that Israel is not allowing patient transfers through Rafah.
Another UN agency also warned Israel’s military operation will disrupt aid deliveries to Gaza.
“Continued interruption of the entry of aid and fuel supplies at the Rafah crossing will halt the critical humanitarian response across the Gaza Strip,” the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said in a post on X.
UNRWA added, “Catastrophic hunger faced by people, especially in northern Gaza, will get much worse if these supply routes are interrupted.”
EU warns of rising casualties
The European Union criticized Israel for the assault on Rafah.
“The land offensive against Rafah has started again, in spite of all of the requests of the international community — the US, the European Union member states — everybody asking Netanyahu not to attack Rafah,” the EU foreign policy chief said on Tuesday.
Josep Borrell warned Israel’s offensive could cause a lot casualties.
“In spite of these warnings and these requests, the attack started yesterday night. I am afraid that this is going to cause again a lot of casualties, civilian casualties, whatever they say. There are 600,000 children in Gaza. They will be pushed to so-called ‘safety zones’ — there are no safe zones in Gaza,” he said.
The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council’s operations in Gaza also added her voice to mounting criticism of Israel’s move.
“Not only is there nowhere safe to go, for many people there’s also no way to get there,” Suze van Meegen told CNN.
Denouncing Israeli atrocities
Officials from across the world also condemned Israel’s offensive, with Turkey describing it as a war crime.
“By carrying out a ground attack on Rafah, just a day after Hamas approved Qatar and Egypt’s proposal for a ceasefire deal, Israel has added another to the war crimes it has committed in Palestinian territories since October 7,” Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz said on X.
Egypt denounced Israel’s operation in Rafah, warning its takeover of the crossing point “threatens the lives of Palestinians who depend on it for aid.
Israel launched the offensive on Rafah a day after Hamas accepted an Egyptian-Qatari-mediated ceasefire proposal.
The resistance movement said Israel’s offensive confirms its intention to disrupt mediation efforts for a ceasefire and the release of captives.
Hamas added that Palestinians in Gaza “are subjected to a war of extermination and systematic starvation” by Israel. Hamas likened it to “the Nazi occupation”.
Abject failure
The Israeli incursion appears to be short of the full-fledged offensive into Rafah that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to carry out for months.
Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed to launch a ground incursion into Rafah in line with his plan to achieve “total victory” over Hamas and “destroy” the resistance group.
Seven months have passed since Israel declared war on Gaza. But, it has failed to defeat Hamas on the battlefield.
Netanyahu is widely aware that the Israeli army will not be able to eliminate Hamas. But he wants to prolong the war to sweep his regime’s military failures under the rug.
Currently, Israel has closed the Rafah crossing which is a lifeline for delivering humanitarian aid to the hungry and starved people.
International humanitarian law prohibits the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court provides that intentionally starving civilians by “depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies” is a war crime.
Over the past months, UN agencies and human rights organizations have asserted that Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Since October 7, Israel has slaughtered nearly 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza. If Israel expands its ground offensive in Rafah, more civilians will be massacred in the city.
Israel is a bogus entity, which is doomed to failure. But a dramatic surge in civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip will bring an absolute disgrace on the US and its Western allies which continue to support it.
by Shahrokh Saei
