BY JULIANNE MCSHANE
excerpt:
Israeli forces announced on Tuesday that they had seized control of the Rafah border crossing, a vital passageway for transporting aid into Gaza, prompting intense condemnation from international aid groups warning that the humanitarian crisis would be significantly exacerbated.
The incursion into Rafah comes a day after White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said that President Biden “doesn’t want to see operations in Rafah that put at greater risk the more than a million people that are seeking refuge there,” On Sunday, Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Programme, said on NBC’s Meet the Press that the “full-blown famine” in Gaza’s north was quickly “moving its way south.”
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been staunch about plans to invade Rafah, has openly defied these warnings. He said last week that the incursion would occur “with or without a deal” to free the hostages or enact a ceasefire, claiming that Rafah is the group’s last major stronghold.
The Israel Defense Forces alleged in a Tuesday morning post on X that the crossing “was being used for terrorist purposes.” The IDF also claimed that it “facilitated the expansion of field hospitals, tents, and an increase in water, food and medical supplies” for Gazans in Al Mawasi, about four miles northeast of Rafah, where Israeli forces were encouraging residents to evacuate.
A lifeline has just been blocked,” Akram al-Satarri, a Gaza-based journalist, told Democracy Now on Tuesday. “That means the patients who are in need [of] medical care…are denied that access. That means the general population of southern Gaza and northern Gaza alike are deprived from the food supplies that were delivered and were even slow before this last development took place.”
“A military assault will, at best, greatly complicate aid delivery,” UNICEF Spokesperson James Elder said. “If Rafah gate closes for an extended period, it’s hard to see how famine in Gaza can be averted.”
