Biggest hospital still functioning in the strip – Nasser in Khan Younis – under siege from Israeli forces
An urgent joint statement warning of the “catastrophic” consequences of an Israeli ground offensive in Rafah has been issued by CEOs of humanitarian agencies and human rights organisations. It includes signatories from Oxfam, Amnesty International, ActionAid, War Child, the Danish Refugee Council and Handicap International.
The statement reads:
We are appalled by the harrowing developments in Rafah, Gaza’s most populated area where 1.5 million people are sheltering as their last resort – over half a million of them children. If Israel launches its proposed ground offensive, thousands more civilians will be killed and the current trickle of humanitarian aid risks coming to a complete halt. If this military plan is not stopped immediately, the consequences will be catastrophic.”
People are living in the most inhumane conditions, many of them out in the open. It defies belief that the Israeli military have forcibly displaced the majority of the population from their homes into Rafah – with six times as many people than before now squeezed into the area – and then announced plans to attack it.”
