Saudi Arabia “strongly” condemned this Saturday (10) Israel's plans to extend its military offensive to Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, where more than a million Palestinians are crowded, and called for an urgent meeting of the Security Council of the UN to prevent an “imminent humanitarian catastrophe”.
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia warns of the very dangerous repercussions of attacking the city of Rafah, the last refuge of hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by brutal Israeli aggression,” stated a statement from the Saudi Foreign Ministry.
The statement also expressed the “categorical rejection and strong condemnation of the forced displacement” of the enclave's inhabitants in the face of the Israeli offensive, and “called once again for an immediate ceasefire.”
“This insistence on violating international law and humanitarian law highlights the need for the (UN) Security Council to meet urgently to prevent Israel from provoking an imminent humanitarian catastrophe, for which anyone supporting aggression would be held accountable,” he added.
Israel announced that it already has a plan to extend its military offensive to Rafah, in the extreme south of the Gaza Strip, on the border with Egypt, where around 1.7 million people are crowded, most of them already evacuated from other parts of the country. enclave.
Both the UN and the United States have expressed concern about a possible expansion of the Israeli offensive, with the US State Department warning that a military operation in the enclave without adequate planning for the evacuation of civilians would be “a disaster”.
Saudi Arabia, which conditions the establishment of relations with Israel on international recognition of a Palestinian state in the territories occupied in 1967, called a “consultative” meeting on the Gaza Strip on Thursday with five Arab countries, including the mediators, Egypt and Qatar, in addition to the Palestinian National Authority (ANP).
At this meeting, the foreign ministers of these three countries and the ANP, as well as the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, called for “guaranteeing the protection of Palestinian civilians” and emphasized that “the Gaza Strip is an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territory.” in 1967.
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