Relief organizations have warned that an attack on Rafah on the border with Egypt — and now a refuge for about half of Gaza's 2.3 million population — would result in widespread civilian casualties. Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said it would be “a humanitarian catastrophe.”
When asked on Sunday whether Israeli forces would move into Rafah, Netanyahu replied: "We'll go there. We're not going to leave. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is, that October 7 doesn't happen again. Never happens again." The PM was referring to the murderous Hamas raid that killed more than 1,160 people in Israel and triggered the war.
Without naming them, Netanyahu claimed he had the tacit support of several Arab leaders for driving ahead with the onslaught against Hamas.
“They understand that, and even agree with it quietly,” he said in an interview with Axel Springer, POLITICO’s parent company. “They understand Hamas is part of the Iranian terror axis.”
International pressure is mounting on Israel to agree a cease-fire.
The exact casualty figures are disputed, with the Hamas-controlled Gazan health ministry saying civilian deaths exceed 30,000. U.N. organizations have also warned of an imminent famine, with the first deaths from starvation already recorded, prompting the EU to open a sea corridor to deliver aid from Cyprus. Israeli authorities have been criticized for blocking the delivery of humanitarian assistance by land, but Netanyahu claimed the sea convoy as his idea in the interview, and denied people were starving.