Australia and Britain Warn of Potential Negative Impact of Israeli Attack on Rafah

Israeli military land operations in Gaza. (Source: Israel Defense Forces)

JAKARTA - Australia and the UK said in a joint statement on Friday that there were potential negative impacts from Israel's ground invasion of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, Palestine.

The statement was issued after the British Defense Minister and Foreign Minister met with the Australian Defense Minister in Adelaide.

"Given the large number of refugees fleeing the region and the lack of safe havens in Gaza, the ministers expressed deep concern over the potentially devastating consequences for the civilian population resulting from the expansion of Israel's military operations in Rafah," said the statement, reported by Reuters, March 22.

Previously, Israel said a ground invasion of Rafah was necessary to eliminate Hamas, although a number of countries, including their ally the United States, warned of dire consequences for the more than one million Palestinians who have taken refuge there since becoming refugees elsewhere in the Gaza Strip during the five-moth war.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected United States President Joe Biden's appeal to cancel plans for a ground attack on Rafah, the last refuge in Gaza for more than a million refugees, but which Israel believes is a hiding place for Hamas militants.

PM Netanyahu told lawmakers on Tuesday that he had made it "very clear" to the US President "that we are determined to complete the annihilation of these battalions in Rafah, and there is no way to do that except by going out on the ground".

"We continue to operate in Khan Younis, in the central camps, to remove and arrest senior Hamas officials as we just did at Shifa Hospital, while eliminating hundreds of terrorists," he said.

"As I have promised you many times, we are determined to achieve absolute victory and we will achieve it," he said.