Israeli ground offensive would turn Rafah into 'graveyard', leading rights experts warn
An Israeli ground offensive on Rafah would turn the Gaza border town teeming with refugees into a “graveyard”, the heads of leading humanitarian and human rights organisations warned at a special press briefing on Tuesday.
“The consequences of a full-scale assault on Rafah are truly unimaginable,” Avril Benoit, executive director of Doctors Without Borders in the US, said at the online press briefing.
“With people in makeshift shelters that can’t even protect against the cold, carrying out a military offensive there would turn it into a graveyard.”
Benoit spoke alongside senior executives from Medico International, Amnesty International, Refugees International, and Oxfam, warning that a looming Israeli invasion of Rafah, where 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering in squalid conditions, could compound the already dire humanitarian situation in the war-ravaged enclave.
The executives described in gruesome detail the daily reality for aid workers and Palestinians in Gaza. Benoit said babies have had their legs amputated before they even learn how to walk and pregnant women are giving birth in tents on the street.
Sally Abi Khalil, regional director of Oxfam, said the impeding of humanitarian aid by Israel was “starvation as a weapon of war”.
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