Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas has asserted that only the United States could stop Israel from attacking the border city of Rafah in Gaza.
“We call on the United States of America to ask Israel to not carry on the Rafah attack,” Abbas stated at a special meeting of the World Economic Forum in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Sunday, April 28, 2024.
“America is the only country able to prevent Israel from committing this crime,” Abbas emphasized.
Israel, which has threatened for weeks to launch an all-out assault on the city, saying its goal is to destroy Hamas’s remaining battalions there, stepped up air attacks on Rafah last week.
Early on Sunday, Gaza’s Health Ministry disclosed that Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 34,454 Palestinians since last October.
Western countries, including Israel’s closest ally the US, have pleaded with it to hold back from attacking the southern city, which abuts the Egyptian border and is sheltering more than a million Palestinians who fled Israel’s seven-month-long assault on much of the rest of Gaza.
Abbas said that even a “small strike” on Rafah would force the Palestinian population to flee Gaza.
“The biggest catastrophe in the Palestinian people’s history would then happen,” he said.
Abbas reiterated that he rejects the displacement of Palestinians into Jordan and Egypt, saying that he is concerned that once Israel completes its operations in Gaza, it will then attempt to force the Palestinian population out of the occupied West Bank and into Jordan.
Netanyahu Urged Not To Withdraw From Rafah Invasion
Meanwhile, Far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich urged Netanyahu not to back down from an assault on Rafah.
He said that agreeing to Egypt’s ceasefire proposal would constitute a humiliating defeat to Hamas.
The ceasefire deal is currently being reviewed by Hamas.
Smotrich said in a video statement addressed to Netanyahu that without eradicating the governing entity in Gaza, “A government headed by you will have no right to exist.”
He asserted that agreement to the truce deal would represent the “death penalty for the hostages and immediate existential danger to the state of Israel.”
Far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir also said that if a ceasefire deal is approved, it will lead to the dissolution of the Benjamin Netanyahu-led government.
On X, Ben-Gvir wrote a “reminder” to a previous post he made in January, saying, “Reckless deal = dismantling of the government.”
Contradicting the comments of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, Israeli war cabinet minister, Benny Gantz opined that if the government rejects a deal to release captives in Gaza, it will “have no right to continue to exist.”
“Entering Rafah is important in the long struggle against Hamas. The return of our abductees, abandoned by the 7.10 government, is urgent and of far greater importance,” Gantz noted on X.
“If a responsible outline is reached for the return of the abductees with the backing of the entire security system, which does not involve the end of the war, and the Ministers who led the government on 7.10 prevent it – the government will not have the right to continue to exist and lead the campaign.”
Benny Gantz
The leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid also added his take on the deal.
“This government has to choose: return the abductees alive, or [Itamar] Ben Gvir and [Bezalel] Smotrich, relations with the Americans or Ben Gvir and Smotrich, the Saudi deal or Ben Gvir and Smotrich, Israel’s security or Ben Gvir and Smotrich,” Lapid wrote on X.
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