Rafah Crisis: Global urgency mounts as calls for intervention intensify amid humanitarian peril Will the clashes cease?

Palestine's Permanent Observer to the UN Riyad Mansour, in a letter to the Security Council of the world organisation in connection with the Israeli army strikes on the town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, has called for stopping war crimes and "genocide".

"I am sending [this message] urgently to renew the call for urgent international mobilisation to stop Israel's genocidal war against the Palestinian population. Three days ago, we renewed our call for immediate action by the international community, warning, among other things, that Israel is threatening to attack Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip," TASS reports, citing the letter.

The letter reads that civilians forced to flee their homes due to the fighting have taken refuge in Rafah.

"Emboldened by the paralysed council and the cover provided by a number of its permanent members, Israel essentially launched an invasion of Rafah, killing more than 164 people and injuring hundreds over the two days. Among the victims were babies born months earlier, whose lives were lived under the conditions of genocide and terror, hunger and suffering to which their families were condemned by Israel," the Palestinian diplomat underscored.

On the night of February 12, Arab media reported that the Israeli Armed Forces carried out massive strikes on Rafah. According to the Al Mayadeen TV channel, 100 people became victims of the bombing and more than 230 were injured.

Commenting on the matter, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk announced on February 12 that a full-scale offensive by Israeli troops on Rafah in the Gaza Strip threatens a humanitarian catastrophe, the international community must not allow such a development.

Turk said it is “wholly imaginable what would lie ahead” if the planned incursion is not stopped.

 “A potential full-fledged military incursion into Rafah, where some 1.5 million Palestinians are packed against the Egyptian border with nowhere further to flee, is terrifying, given the prospect that an extremely high number of civilians, again mostly children and women, will likely be killed and injured,” Turk said in a statement.

Then the concern over the strikes on Rafah was expressed by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, who called on the US and other countries to stop supplying arms to Israel. He also expressed concern at the prospect of an Israeli offensive on Rafah, where more than half of the Gaza Strip's population is sheltering. “They are going to evacuate – where? To the moon? Where are they going to evacuate these people?” Borrell asked.

Moreover, Borrell urged allies of Israel, primarily the United States, to stop sending it weapons as “too many people” are being killed in Gaza.

Pointing to US President Joe Biden’s comment last week that Israel’s military action was “over the top”, Borrell said on Monday: “Well, if you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide fewer arms in order to prevent so many people having been killed.”

“How many times have you heard the most prominent leaders and foreign ministers around the world saying too many people are being killed?” Borrell asked.

“If the international community believes that this is a slaughter, that too many people are being killed, maybe we have to think about the provision of arms,” Borrell added.

Meanwhile, President Biden and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, speaking jointly at the White House on February 12, warned against an indiscriminate Israeli invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, resulting in an event that had not occurred since the Israel-Hamas war began — the president standing alongside an Arab leader to voice reservations about the Israeli onslaught in the Palestinian enclave.

“The major military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible plan to ensure the safety and support of more than 1 million people sheltering there,” Biden said, referring to Israel’s publicly announced plans to invade the city.

“Many people there have been displaced — displaced multiple times, fleeing the violence to the north. And now they’re packed into Rafah, exposed and vulnerable. They need to be protected,” the US leader said.

Speaking after a meeting with US President Joe Biden at the White House, Jordan's King Abdullah II stressed that Israel's operation in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah will turn into another humanitarian disaster.

Abdullah II said that Israel's attack on Rafah could not be afforded. “We cannot afford an Israeli attack on Rafah. It is certain to create another humanitarian catastrophe,” the king said.

Referring to the war more broadly, he added: “We cannot stand by and let this continue. We need a lasting ceasefire now. This war must end."

Further, addressing a briefing, the Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy military underlined that the Israeli military had killed more than 12,000 armed radicals in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of military operations in the enclave in response to the attack of the radical Hamas movement on Israel on October 7.

"Three-quarters of Hamas battalions have already been destroyed, more than 12,000 terrorists have been killed, taking into account wounded and detained terrorists, half of Hamas combat personnel have been put out of action," Levy said.

"Hamas started this war with 24 battalions, 18 of them have already been eliminated, 2 more are almost destroyed in Khan Younis [a town in the southern part of the Gaza Strip], 4 battalions remain in Rafah (a town in the south of the Gaza Strip near the border with Egypt [TASS note]," the Israeli Cabinet spokesman added.

Levy recalled that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "instructed the military to present a plan to evacuate civilians from Rafah" before the operation against the remaining Hamas battalions in the city.

More than 28,340 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in the Israeli assault on Gaza since October, according to Palestinian authorities. The relentless Israeli bombardment and ground offensive have displaced more than 80 per cent of the population, according to aid agencies, and reduced much of the territory to rubble.

Israel launched its war on Gaza after Hamas carried out a surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,139 people, mostly civilians, according to an Al Jazeera tally based on official Israeli figures.