Abbas pleads with US to stop Israel’s Rafah assault

‘America is the only country able to prevent Israel from committing this crime, Palestinian president tells WEF

- CHRIS STEVENSON

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has pleaded with the US to stop Israel from attacking the Gaza border city of Rafah –saying he expects an assault to begin within days on an area where more than a million people have taken refuge.

Mr Abbas, who heads the Palestinian Authority (PA), said that the US is the only nation capable of halting Israel’s plans for an assault on the southern city, which would force much of the Palestinian population to flee. At least half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are believed to be sheltering in Rafah.

“We call on the United States of America to ask Israel to not carry on the Rafah attack. America is the only country able to prevent Israel from committing this crime,” Mr Abbas told a special meeting of the World Economic Forum in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

Israel, which has threatened for weeks to launch an all-out assault on the neighbourhood, saying its goal is to destroy Hamas’s remaining battalions there, stepped up airstrikes on Rafah last week.

The UK, the US and several other nations have called on Israel not to go into Rafah, fearing what will happen to those gathered there. Israel has moved from north to south in its near-seven-month war on Hamas, which runs Gaza. And many residents have been forced further south as the Israeli military has advanced.

“What will happen in the coming few days is what Israel will do with attacking Rafah because all the Palestinians from Gaza are gathered there,” Mr Abbas said, adding that it would only take a “small strike” on Rafah to force the Palestinian population to flee the Gaza Strip.