Middle East crisis live: Israel warned against ‘catastrophic’ Rafah offensive as starvation fears grow
Israel’s plans for a military offensive on Rafah in the Gaza Strip are “alarming”, the EU’s foreign policy chief has said.
Josep Borell said on social media platform X that “1.4 million Palestinians are currently in Rafah without safe place to go, facing starvation”, Agence France-Presse reports.
Rafah is the southernmost city in the Palestinian territory hit by Israel’s fierce offensive since Hamas’s 7 October attacks and many of Gaza’s population of 2.2 million have taken refuge there.
Earlier, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told officials to “submit to the cabinet a combined plan for evacuating the population and destroying the battalions” of Hamas holed up in Rafah, his office said.
Netanyahu said this week he had ordered troops to prepare to move into Rafah, and that “total victory” against the militants would come in months.
