Several “Israeli” officials and War Cabinet members firmly asserted that an invasion of the border city of Rafah, which houses 1.8 million displaced Palestinians, will go underway soon, shrugging off global calls, including from the US, to halt their plans.

 

Biden warned “Israeli” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that a Rafah offensive would be a “red line” adding that they “cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead.”

 

Netanyahu said that he intends to go ahead with the attack and flouted Biden’s red line, saying, “I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn't happen again. Never happens again."

 

"We'll go there. We're not going to leave them. You know,” he added.

 

“Israeli” War Cabinet and Minister Benny Gantz, in a visit to the United States last week, where he met with several high-ranking US officials including Vice President Kamala Harris, said that “finishing the war without demilitarizing Rafah, like putting out 80% of fire.”

 

He stated earlier that if a temporary ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal doesn’t take place before Ramadan -which starts today, Monday- in Palestine, then the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) will launch the next stage of the aggression.

 

In the one hundred and fifty-seventh day of the relentless aggression on the Strip, the death toll of victims of forced malnutrition and dehydration rose to 26 after the martyrdom of three new children at Al-Shifa Medical Complex, Gaza's Government Media Office stated that 90 percent of the Strip’s citizens have become displaced.

 

In a preliminary toll, the number of casualties from the ongoing aggression since Oct. 7, 2023 has reached 30,960 martyrs, in addition to 72,524 wounded, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.