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The United Nations humanitarian aid agency says hundreds of thousands of people would be “at imminent risk of death” if Israel carries out a military assault in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.The city has become critical for humanitarian aid and is highly concentrated with displaced Palestinians.Leaders internationally have urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be cautious about any incursion into Rafah, where seven people — mostly children — were killed overnight in an Israeli airstrike.On Thursday, United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said any U.S. response to such an incursion would be up to President Joe Biden, but that currently, “conditions are not favorable to any kind of operation.” Turkey’s trade minister said Friday that its new trade ban on Israel was in response to “the deterioration and aggravation of the situation in Rafah.”The Israel-Hamas war has driven around 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million from their homes, caused vast destruction in several towns and cities, and pushed northern Gaza to the brink of famine. The death toll in Gaza has soared to more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials, and the territory’s entire population has been driven into a humanitarian catastrophe.
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Rafah incursion would put hundreds of thousands of lives at risk, says UN aid agency
