Jordan warns of Israeli military operation in southern Gaza’s Rafah

AMMAN, Jordan

Jordan warned on Saturday of the danger of an Israeli attack on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, according to an official statement.

The Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates warned "of the danger of the Israeli occupation army carrying out a military operation in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, which houses a large number of Palestinian brothers who were displaced there as a safe haven from the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip."

The ministry reiterated "the Kingdom's absolute rejection of the displacement of Palestinians inside or outside their land."

It stressed "the necessity of ending the war on the Gaza Strip and reaching an immediate cease-fire that guarantees the protection of civilians, their return to their places of residence, and the arrival of aid to all parts of the Gaza Strip."

The Foreign Ministry also called on the international community “to assume its responsibilities and take immediate and effective action to prevent Israel from continuing its raging war.”

The ministry stressed the need for the UN Security Council to “prevent dangerous deterioration and enforce an immediate cease-fire."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the military to submit a combined plan to evacuate Palestinian residents from Rafah, home to more than 1 million residents seeking refuge from war, and to defeat the last "Hamas battalions."

The Palestinians have sought refuge in Rafah as Israel pounded the rest of the enclave following the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion. The bombardment has killed nearly 28,000 people, besides causing mass destruction and shortages of basic necessities.

The Israeli offensive has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure was damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

*Writing by Ikram Kouachi