Canada, Australia, New Zealand say they’re ‘gravely concerned’ about Rafah operation

The prime ministers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand have issued a joint statement saying a “humanitarian ceasefire is urgently needed” in Gaza and that they are “gravely concerned” about looming Israeli military operations in Rafah.

“A military operation into Rafah would be catastrophic. About 1.5 million Palestinians are taking refuge in the area, including many of our citizens and their families,” the statement reads.

“With the humanitarian situation in Gaza already dire, the impacts on Palestinian civilians from an expanded military operation would be devastating. We urge the Israeli government not to go down this path.”

The statement – cosigned by Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese, Justin Trudeau and Christopher Luxon – also said that Israel “must listen to its friends and it must listen to the international community” and that Palestinian civilians can’t be made to “pay the price of defeating Hamas”.

This is not the first time that Australia, Canada and New Zealand have backed an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

All three were among 153 countries that voted in support of a UN General Assembly resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire on December 13 last year.

Still, the joint statement issued by the prime ministers of three countries with strong ties to both the United States and Israel is notable in light of growing international concern about Israel’s planned ground invasion of Rafah.

Israel’s bombardment in the enclave has left more than 28,000 people dead, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities.

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‘UNJUSTIFIABLE’: WONG’S MESSAGE TO ISRAEL

Penny Wong has made one of her strongest statements yet on the ongoing war in Gaza, declaring a planned Israeli ground offensive in Rafah would be “unjustifiable” and urged the Jewish state to “not go down this path”.

“The world is watching,” the Foreign Minister warned Israel in a statement to the foreign affairs senate estimates.

The Israeli military is planning an operation into Rafah, a small city at the southern end of the Gaza Strip which is currently sheltering about 1.5 million Palestinians, many of whom who have fled to the area since October 7.

Senator Wong said Australia strongly objected to the offensive, saying it would bring “devastation” to the innocent civilians seeking shelter.

“Large scale military opposite operations in densely populated areas risk extensive civilian casualties,” she said.

“Australia believes this would be unjustifiable.

“Our message to Israel is – listen to the world; do not go down this path.”

ISRAEL LAUNCHES DEADLY STRIKES ON LEBANON

Israel has launched its longest and heaviest attack on neighbouring Lebanon since the start of the Gaza war, killing at least nine civilians.

Israeli fighter jets began “an extensive wave of attacks in Lebanese territory” on Wednesday local time, Israeli Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari announced as the strikes were underway.

The Israeli strikes killed at least five people, including two Hezbollah fighters, the militant group said. Two children along with their mother were among the civilians killed.

Both sides have accused the other of increasing the scope of strikes in recent weeks, leading to fears that the conflict could widen at a time when Israel is planning to expand its offensive into Rafah, where more than one million people — half the population of the Gaza Strip — have taken shelter.

More than 100,000 Israelis living along the Lebanese border have been displaced since Hezbollah launched a series of cross-border strikes after the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel.

With Israeli strikes hitting deeper into Lebanese territory — and killing civilians — diplomats from the United States, Britain, France and the European Union have descended on Lebanon in efforts to head off a full-scale war.

US PROBES ISRAEL USE OF WHITE PHOSPHOROUS

The US is investigating several Israeli air strikes in Gaza that killed dozens of civilians and the possible use by Israel of white phosphorus in Lebanon, as part of a probe by the State Department to determine whether America’s closest ally has misused its bombs and missiles to kill civilians, US officials told The Wall Street Journal.

The process shows the dilemmas facing the Biden administration, which so far has ruled out putting conditions on arms transfers to pressure Israel, but faces increasing calls from some members of Congress to do so as the war wears on.

One attack the State Department is currently investigating is an October 31 air strike on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp near Gaza City that killed more than 125 people, the US officials said.

Weapons investigators suspect that Israel used a 2000-pound bomb in the strike, which could have been provided by the US The United Nations Human Rights Office said the strike killed a large number of civilians and could be a war crime.

Israeli officials declined to comment on what type of weapon they used, but said they had tried to minimise civilian casualties in the October 31 attack by using a delayed fuse that allowed it to detonate underground.

ELON MUSK’S STARLINK GETS GREEN LIGHT IN GAZA, ISRAEL

The Israeli government said it has approved the use of Starlink satellite services in a field hospital in the war-battered Gaza Strip, and in Israel for the first time.

“The Israeli security authorities approved the provision of Starlink services at the UAE’s field hospital operating in Rafah,” the Communications Ministry said in a statement.

“Starlink low-latency, high-speed connections will enable video conferencing with other hospitals and real-time remote diagnostics,” it said.

The Communications Ministry also said that Starlink — the satellite network of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and the world’s largest satellite operator — will be enabled in Israel for the first time.

“The use of the company’s services will be limited at first with broader use expected in the future.”

Musk said in a posting on his social media platform X that he greatly appreciated Israel’s move, saying he hoped it would help both Israelis and Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

TRUCE TALKS ENTER SECOND DAY

Negotiations to pause the Israel-Hamas war and free the remaining hostages have headed into a second day in Cairo, as displaced Gazans braced for an expected Israeli assault on their last refuge of Rafah.

A Hamas source said that a delegation was headed to the Egyptian capital to meet Egyptian and Qatari mediators, after Israeli negotiators held talks with the mediators on Tuesday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an outspoken critic of Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war, was also due in Cairo on Wednesday for talks with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

CIA Director William Burns had joined earlier talks with David Barnea, head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service, which Egyptian media said had been mostly “positive”.

US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby described the negotiations as “constructive and moving in the right direction”.

Mediators are racing to secure a pause to the fighting before Israel proceeds with a full-scale ground incursion into the Gaza Strip’s far-southern city of Rafah, where more than 1.4 million Palestinians are trapped.

The potential for mass civilian casualties has triggered urgent appeals, even from close allies, for Israel to hold off sending troops into the last major population centre they have yet to enter in the four-month war.

Key ally the United States has said it will not back any ground operation in Rafah without a “credible plan” for protecting civilians.

Rafah is the main entry point for desperately needed relief supplies and UN agencies have warned of a humanitarian disaster if an assault goes ahead.

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said any military operation “could lead to a slaughter”.

Terrified civilians have been locked in a desperate search for safety.

“My three children were injured, where can I go?” Dana Abu Chaaban asked at the city’s border crossing with Egypt, where she was hoping to be allowed across with her bandaged-up sons.

EGYPT UNDER PRESSURE TO OPEN BORDER

Pressure has grown on Egypt to open its border to Palestinian civilians, hundreds of thousands of whom have sought shelter in makeshift camps by the border where they face outbreaks of hepatitis and diarrhoea and a scarcity of food and water.

But it remains closed to Gazans.

“For 100 days we enter the crossing and beg them to let us cross, or to do anything to help us,” Habiba Nakhala said.

US President Joe Biden has said civilians in Rafah “need to be protected”, calling them “exposed and vulnerable”.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said “complete victory” cannot be achieved without the elimination of Hamas’s last battalions in Rafah.

As the truce talks go on in Cairo, the Israeli military has kept up its bombardment of Gaza. The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said Wednesday that 104 people had been killed overnight.

Late Tuesday, the military released a video it said was from a security camera and showed Gaza’s Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar and family members escaping through a tunnel days after the October 7 attack that launched the war.

“The hunt will not stop until he is captured alive or dead,” Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari told reporters.

Some Gazans in Rafah were already packing up their belongings in readiness to move but others vowed to stay put, fearing even greater misery in the bombed-out hometowns they fled.

Ahlam Abu Assi said she “would rather die” in Rafah than return to the famine-like conditions facing relatives who stayed in Gaza City.

“My son and his children have nothing to eat. They cook a handful of rice and save it for the next day,” she told AFP. “My grandson cries from hunger.”

– with AFP