By Blessing Chinagorom
The United Nation through its spokesperson has said the reported strikes in Rafah have heightened concerns of escalation in Gaza’s southernmost city, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have sought refuge.
The Spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric during a Press Briefing on Monday made this known said Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported ground military operations and heavy fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups continues in Rafah, but also in Khan Younis.
It was stated that of the 1.7 million people displaced in Gaza, the majority are situated in Rafah governorate, where humanitarian operations are now based. “The growing insecurity in Rafah has greatly impacted our ability to respond to the humanitarian needs of the population there.
“In Khan Younis, intense fighting — especially near the Nasser and Al Amal hospitals — continues to jeopardize the safety not only of medical staff, but also of course of the patients, the wounded and the sick those doctors and nurses are trying to take care of”, UN said.
The World Body noted that across Gaza, people displaced by the hostilities are facing acute shortages of clean water, of shelter, of food and of medicine. “Despite worsening situation, we, along with our partners, are doing all we can to deliver life-saving assistance to hundreds of thousands of people in need.
“Our humanitarian partners are reaching about 450,000 people weekly with a variety of health services. Each week, partners carry out nearly 300,000 primary health-care consultations, on average. They are also planning to open stabilization centres for acute malnutrition cases with medical complications.
“More than two dozen humanitarian partners are providing shelter assistance, some 28,000 tents and other equipment are currently in the pipeline to be delivered.
“However, the cost of these supplies is rising, and there is an urgent need to restore the role of the private sector in providing basic commodities. At this point, as we have been saying, there is clearly not enough aid that we’re able to bring in to meet humanitarian needs of the population”, UN said.
Also, United States has said it does not support any military campaign in Rafah going forward as long as Israel cannot properly account for the 1.1 million people, by some estimates, who are in Rafah today, some of whom have already been displaced, some of whom have been displaced multiple times.
According to the State Department Spokesman during briefing on Monday disclosed this while recalling President Joe Biden and Secretary of State, Antony Blinken’s conversation to the Prime Minister and the members of the Government of Israel recently.
According to him, “We think there needs to be a credible plan that they can actually execute before they undertake any military campaign in Rafah. Now that said, they have conducted air strikes against Rafah really since going back to the original days of the campaign.
“We just saw, obviously, the order from the prime minister last week to the Israeli military to develop a plan for dealing with Rafah. We look forward to reviewing that plan. We look forward to being briefed on it.
“And we will make clear, as we did last week and as the President did in his conversation over the weekend, that without such a plan that is credible and that they can execute, we do not support a full-scale military operation there going ahead”, United States said.
It was reported that 67 Palestinians, including babies and children, were killed Sunday night as Israel intensified bombing in Rafah, where over 1 million Palestinians are sheltering, in preparation for ground invasion that experts warn would amount to genocide.