BRUSSELS (AP) – The European Union said Saturday that Israeli forces are taking a stand against Hamas in the town of Rafah on the Egyptian border in the Gaza Strip, where more than 1 million people have fled the fighting. expressed concern.
The EU’s top diplomat said the conflict would continue unless a ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Hamas, after the US carried out airstrikes on dozens of bases in Iraq and Syria used by Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. It warned that it was likely to spread throughout the region.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said around 1 million Palestinians were “gradually being evacuated towards the Egyptian border”. They claimed that they were in a safe zone, but what we are actually seeing is continued bombing that is affecting civilians, creating a very dire situation. It means that there is. ”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday that Israeli forces would move to Rafah after taking control of the southern city of Khan Yunis, where tens of thousands of people have fled. He did not mention a deadline.
Such attacks could push refugees into Egypt, undermine Israel’s peace agreement with the country and anger the United States. It also undermined slow-moving peace talks with Hamas and complicated efforts to free scores of Israelis abducted when the militant group rampaged through southern Israel on October 7. there’s a possibility that.
Nothing to see here: EU insists there is no evidence that Palestinian aid went to ‘unintended purposes’https://t.co/S76dYHhYQY
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 22, 2023
The prospect of ground fighting in Rafah has raised concerns about where residents will go to seek safety. The United Nations said the town was becoming a “pressure cooker of despair”.
Speaking in Brussels before chairing informal consultations between EU foreign ministers, Borrell said the Israel-Hamas war was creating a “domino effect”, with conflicts erupting in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and the Red Sea region. He said there was.
“We are in a crisis situation in the Middle East and throughout the region,” he said. “As long as the war in Gaza continues, it is very difficult to believe that the situation in the Red Sea will improve, because one thing is connected to another.”
Belgian Foreign Minister Haja Rabib, who currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, warned of the “real risk of conflict spillover”.
“It is a big concern. We call for restraint, we call for dialogue and diplomacy. That is the only way to calm the situation in the Middle East,” she told reporters.
Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski of Poland, a staunch US ally, said the people targeted by the US airstrikes were waiting for it to come. “Iran’s proxies have been playing with fire for months and years, and now they’re burning them down,” he said.
