• Israel’s PM Netanyahu this week told troops to prepare to go into city
• Aboul Gheit stressed intention to displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians threatened regional stability

Gobran Mohamed

CAIRO: The Arab League chief has warned of dangerous consequences if Israeli forces attack Rafah City in the Gaza Strip.

Ahmed Aboul Gheit stressed that Israel’s intention to displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, who have taken refuge in Rafah as a last resort from indiscriminate attacks on civilians in the enclave, entail serious threats to regional stability.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week said he had told troops to prepare to go into the city, as part of its campaign to destroy Palestinian militant group Hamas for mounting its deadly attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7.

But he has faced growing calls not to attack Rafah, on the border with Egypt, which is the last refuge for Gazans fleeing Israel’s relentless bombardment elsewhere in the coastal territory.

Jamal Rushdi, the official spokesman for Aboul Gheit, quoted him as saying that pushing hundreds of thousands to flee the Gaza Strip is a violation of international law and international humanitarian law.

“It also represents a dangerous ignition of the situation in the region by crossing the red lines of national security for a large Arab country, Egypt,” Aboul Gheit said.

“The world must pay attention to the danger of (this) Israeli practice driven by an extremist right-wing agenda that wants to empty the Gaza Strip of its population and achieve comprehensive ethnic cleansing, that should have no place in this era.”

Rushdi pointed out that senior figures in the Israeli government had not hidden their intentions to displace and deport the Palestinian population and even to establish Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip, which makes international action at this stage necessary to prevent a catastrophe.