Israeli assault on Gaza’s Rafah a ‘terrifying’ prospect: UN rights chief
- UN human rights chief warns of ‘extremely high’ casualties as Israel intensifies strikes
- Israel has described Rafah as the last remaining Hamas stronghold in Gaza
The United Nations said Monday the prospect of a full Israeli incursion into the crammed Gaza town of Rafah was “terrifying” and risked an “extremely high” number of casualties.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk urged world powers to “restrain rather than enable” as fears of a looming ground incursion grew among more than one million Palestinians trapped in the territory’s far south.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to send ground troops into the crowded Rafah area as part of his goal of eliminating Hamas.
His declarations have sparked international alarm.
“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.
“Sadly, given the carnage wrought so far in Gaza it is wholly imaginable what would lie ahead in Rafah.