More than a million Palestinians are seeking refuge in the southern Gaza city after being displaced by Israeli attacks.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said only the United States could stop Israel from attacking the Gaza border town of Rafah, adding that the attack, which he expected within days, would send much of the Palestinian population fleeing the enclave could force.
“We call on the United States of America to call on Israel not to continue the Rafah attack. “America is the only country that can stop Israel from committing this crime,” Abbas told a special session of the World Economic Forum in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Sunday.
Israel, which has been threatening a major attack on the city for weeks and has said its goal is to destroy the remaining Hamas battalions there, stepped up airstrikes on Rafah last week.
Western countries, including Israel’s closest ally the United States, have asked Israel to refrain from attacks on the southern city, which borders the Egyptian border and is home to more than a million Palestinians who have fled Israel’s seven-month assault on much of the rest are from Gaza.
Abbas said even a “small attack” on Rafah would force the Palestinian population to flee Gaza.
“Then the greatest catastrophe in the history of the Palestinian people would occur,” he said.
Abbas reiterated that he opposes the expulsion of Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt and said he is concerned that once Israel completes its operations in Gaza, it will seek to expel the Palestinian population from the occupied West Bank to Jordan.
Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Ramallah, said Abbas’s comments were significant because it was the first time a senior Palestinian Authority leader had made such a statement, but added that Palestinians wanted more Palestinian Authority leaders await.
“Abbas is simply repeating the things that the Palestinians we have spoken to over the last six months have said,” he said.
“The reaction to Abbas’s comments on the Palestinian streets is likely to reflect a broader political reaction. The people we’ve spoken to say what they see is a speech from their leader, far too late and far too weak.”
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas led an attack on southern Israel on October 7 that Israel said killed 1,139 people and captured 253.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 34,400 Palestinians have been killed since then and most of the population has been displaced.
Hundreds of thousands of people seeking refuge in Rafah have nowhere to flee in the face of the Israeli offensive that has leveled large swathes of the urban landscape in the rest of the territory.
United Nations officials and human rights groups warn that an attack on Rafah will have catastrophic consequences.