International organizations, rights group advocates and even a growing number of Western leaders are all urging Israel to refrain from launching a full-scale ground offensive on Rafah, the overwhelmed city on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.
Close to a million and a half displaced Palestinians are crammed in makeshift encampments there, the majority having fled other parts of Gaza already ravaged by the Israeli military campaign that followed the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas.
U.N. officials said the likelihood of flagrant violations of international law and potential war crimes was mounting in a conflict that has already seen more than 27,000 Palestinians killed — the majority women and children — and a large chunk of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure destroyed.
“The risk of commission of atrocity crimes should a full military incursion into Rafah take place, is serious, real and high,” Alice Wairimu Nderitu, U.N. special adviser on the prevention of genocide, said in a statement.
Such a concrete plan, at present, does not exist: Talk of “safe zones” along the beach in an area known as al Mawasi has proven mostly notional, with civilians squatting in squalid conditions without reliable access to shelter or food.
The Biden administration, with the tacit support of a number of influential Arab governments, envisions a grand bargain that would provide for both the reconstruction of Gaza, the revival of a political track for Palestinian statehood and Israel’s deeper integration into the region.
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