Palestinian Official Warns of Impending Massacres in Gaza

"Any military operations in Rafah – with its limited space and crowdedness with over 1.5 million Palestinians displaced by the Israeli army – would lead to brutal massacres unprecedented in modern history," said Mustafa Barghouti from the Palestinian National Initiative party.

Barghouti's statement follows Israeli regime minister Yoav Gallant's announcement designating Rafah as the next target in Israel's military campaigns. The Israeli offensive has driven 85 percent of Gaza's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.

According to the UN's humanitarian monitors, Israel's evacuation orders now encompass two-thirds of Gaza's territory, totaling 246 square kilometers (95 square miles).

Before the eruption of war on October 7, the affected area housed 1.78 million Palestinians, constituting 77 percent of Gaza's population.

Throughout Israel's extensive offensive, evacuation orders have progressively extended to southern regions, including Khan Younis and its environs, formerly designated as a safe zone and now the focal point of Israel's ground incursion.

Tens of thousands of individuals have fled and continue to flee from these areas, as reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in its latest daily update on Gaza's humanitarian crisis.

Over half of Gaza's 2.3 million population is now concentrated in Rafah town on the Egyptian border and its surrounding areas, according to OCHA.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority accuses Israel of intensifying its crimes and genocide against the Palestinian people, targeting civilians, obstructing access to basic necessities, and persistently ravaging the Gaza Strip.

In a statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said Israel's crimes, including the mass relocation of over 1.3 million Palestinians to Rafah amid invasion threats, signify a challenge to the international community and the US administration, with a looming threat of further massacres.

"Israel will welcome Blinken amid the deepening fragmentation of the West Bank, the continued attacks of the settlers, and the deployment of more checkpoints, paralyzing the movement of citizens," the statement added.

According to the Health Ministry, Israeli forces conducted 12 separate attacks on Gaza in the past 24 hours, killing 107 Palestinians and injuring 143 others.

Since October 7, the death toll has reached 27,585 Palestinians, with 66,978 wounded, the ministry reports, emphasizing that the Israeli military has obstructed ambulance and civil defense crews' access to injured individuals and Palestinians trapped under rubble.

On the 123rd day of Israel's ongoing assault, the damage inflicted on the strip is described as unprecedented, with hundreds of buildings destroyed and over 85 percent of Gaza's population internally displaced, leaving "nothing left," as stated by UNRWA.