UNITED NATIONS/WASHINGTON, May 14: Nearly half a million Palestinians have been displaced in recent days by escalating Israeli military operations in southern and northern Gaza, the United Nations says.
Around 360,000 Palestinians were driven out of Rafah in Gaza’s south over the past week, the United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees said. There were roughly 1.3 million people sheltering in Rafah before Israel began pushing into the city, which Israel says is the last Hamas stronghold.
Israeli forces are also battling Hamas militants in northern Gaza, where the army had launched major operations earlier in the war.
The army’s evacuation orders issued Saturday have displaced around 100,000 people so far, UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters Monday.
No food has entered the two main border crossings in southern Gaza for the past week. Some 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza face catastrophic levels of hunger, on the brink of starvation, and a “full-blown famine” is taking place in the north, according to the UN.
Seven months of Israeli bombardment and ground operations in Gaza have killed more than 35,000 people, most of them women and children, according to local health officials.
‘Israel risks endless counterinsurgency in Gaza’
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday that the US administration has expressed concerns to Israeli officials about becoming “mired in a counterinsurgency campaign that never ends” as Israel’s War Cabinet remains focused on carrying out a major operation the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
The comments from a top adviser to President Joe Biden came a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken cautioned that Israel could be left “holding the bag” on an enduring insurgency in post-war Gaza.
“Look, we have painful experience in counterinsurgency campaigns fighting terrorists in urban environments, in populated areas,” said Sullivan, referring to long US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “And we know that it is not as simple as executing a military operation and calling it a day.”
Sullivan added that, “One of the risks of engaging in any kind of counterinsurgency campaign is the ability of the terrorist group to attract more recruits and more followers as time goes on.”
Sullivan said he spoke to his Israeli and Egyptian counterparts on Sunday about redoubling diplomatic efforts on a hostage-for-truce negotiations, and that US officials would have further conversations with the Israelis in the coming days about how Israel can refine its plan to go after Hamas militants in Rafah while lessening the risk to Palestinian civilians.
He also pushed back against growing criticism from around the globe — as well as American critics of Israel’s prosecution of the war — who say Israeli forces are committing a genocide against the Palestinians.
Egypt, a key US ally, said it would join South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, which accuses Israel of violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention.
The top United Nations court has concluded there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies. (AP)
