By Jörg Blank, dpa I Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024
BERLIN – German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has called on the Israeli government to hold off on its ground offensive in the city of Rafah and agree to a ceasefire instead in view of the worsening humanitarian situation of the Palestinians in Gaza.
“In Rafah, 1.3 million people are living in a very confined space under the most terrible conditions,” the minister said on Wednesday before she arrived in Israel for a two-day visit.
“Under these conditions, an offensive by the Israeli army on Rafah would completely jeopardize the humanitarian situation.”
The people in Rafah “cannot simply vanish into thin air,” she continued. They need safe places and safe corridors to avoid being caught in the crossfire even more, she said.
“They need more humanitarian aid. And they need a ceasefire,” the foreign minister said, adding: “Gaza is on the brink of collapse.”
Many of the people in Rafah had followed the Israeli evacuation orders and fled the combat zones in northern Gaza – “often with nothing more than their children in their arms and the clothes on their backs.”
The ground offensive announced by the Israeli army against Hamas in Rafah in southern Gaza has drawn sharp criticism from the international community.
Baerbock arrived in Israel on Wednesday on her fifth trip to Israel since the terrorist attack led by the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement on October 7 that killed over 1,200.
In massive airstrikes and a ground invasion that followed, Israel has killed 28,576 Palestinians in Gaza and injured 68,291, the ministry of health in Gaza reported on Wednesday.
According to UN figures, around 85% of Gazans have been internally displaced in the densely populated coastal strip since the start of the Israeli invasion.
Baerbock is scheduled to meet her counterpart, Israel Katz.
Baerbock plans to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the afternoon. A meeting with opposition leader Yair Lapid is also planned.
A meeting with President Isaac Herzog is scheduled for Thursday.
On Tuesday, Baerbock called on Israel to provide protective corridors so that the civilian population in Rafah could reach safety. She also demanded once again that Israel allow more humanitarian aid to be delivered to the Gaza Strip.
During a visit to Berlin by the foreign minister of the Palestinian Territories, Riyad al-Maliki, she emphasized Israel’s right to self-defence against Hamas’ terrorism but also stressed that Israel had a duty to respect international humanitarian law.
Baerbock is expected to attend the Munich Security Conference on Friday. The Gaza war is expected to be one of the main topics there, alongside the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
A spokesman for the German Foreign Office said that Baerbock’s talks in Israel will also focus on the political path towards a new humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
This should create a window of opportunity for the release of further hostages and negotiations on a sustainable ceasefire, he said.
