US says Israeli operation in Rafah 'would be a disaster' for Palestinians

By Iclal Turan and Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - The US on Thursday warned that an Israeli military operation in Rafah "would be a disaster" for the more than 1 million displaced Palestinians sheltering there.

The White House and State Department stressed they have not seen evidence to suggest that such an operation is imminent, but warned of grave humanitarian consequences if one were to take place.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said hours earlier that the military would advance on the area near the Egyptian border after earlier ordering many Palestinians from elsewhere in the coastal enclave to seek shelter there.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that the US has not seen any "plans that would convince us that they are about to, or imminently, going to conduct any kind of major operations in Rafah."

"There's a lot of displaced people there, and the Israeli military has a special obligation as they conduct operations there or anywhere else, to make sure that they're factoring in protection for innocent civilian life, particularly civilians that were pushed into southern Gaza by operations further north," he said.

"Absent any full consideration of protecting civilians at that scale in Gaza, military operations right now would be a disaster for those people, and it's not something that we would support," added Kirby.

The comments were echoed by State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel who said the Biden administration "would not support the undertaking of something like this without serious and credible planning as it relates to the" protection of civilians sheltering in Rafah.

Netanyahu vowed to take Israeli military operations into Rafah, saying the war on Gaza will continue until Israel can claim “total victory” against Hamas.

At least 14 Palestinians were killed and several injured overnight as Israeli warplanes targeted houses in Rafah and Deir al-Balah in the southern and central Gaza Strip, the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, reported late Wednesday.

Israel launched a deadly offensive on Gaza following an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas, killing at least 27,585 Palestinians and injuring 66,978 others, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli offensive has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Many of the displaced have taken shelter in Rafah.