Deputy spokesman for the US State Department, Vedant Patel, said on Thursday that any Israeli military operation in the Palestinian Rafah would be disastrous, stressing that Washington would not support it.
Patel stated in press statements, “The United States of America will not support Israel’s implementation of any Israeli operation in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip,” stressing that “implementing such an operation now without planning and thinking in an area where there are a million people would be a disaster.”
He added, “The United States has not seen evidence of serious planning regarding the proposed Israeli military operation in Rafah.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported last Tuesday that “any move by Israel to expand its ground operation in Gaza, to include the crowded city of Rafah in the south of the Strip, may lead to war crimes that must be prevented at all costs.”
In a statement, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs quoted the office’s spokesman, Jens Laerke, as saying that “under international humanitarian law, indiscriminate bombing of densely populated areas could amount to war crimes.”
Source: Sputnik
