Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday (8) that a date for a ground offensive on Rafah has been set, according to a video posted on his official Telegram account.
Netanyahu did not specify the date in question. He also said that “entry into Rafah” was necessary for a “complete victory over Hamas.”
Rafah, in the southernmost part of the besieged enclave, is where around 1.5 million Palestinians are estimated to be sheltering after fleeing fighting in the northern Gaza Strip.
Earlier on Monday, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said that if Netanyahu abandoned plans for a ground offensive in Rafah, he could lose the support of the coalition that kept him in power.
The US State Department later said that Israel did not inform the US of the date of the announced Rafah invasion.
Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesman, reiterated that the US believes a ground offensive “would have an enormously harmful effect on civilians and would ultimately harm Israel’s security.”
“We have not yet seen them come up with a credible plan to deal with the 1.4 million civilians who are in Rafah, some of whom have moved more than once, some of whom have moved more than twice,” Miller said at a conference press.
Miller said the US would have “more conversations in the coming days, in the coming weeks” with Israeli officials about a potential operation in Rafah “and how we could carry it out in a better way.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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