Italy's president Sergio Mattarella has joined international calls for Israel to avoid an offensive in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah after the Israeli military (IDF) said its troops had taken operational control of the Palestinian side of the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
"I join the Secretary-General (Antonio Guterres)'s appeal for military operations at Rafah to be avoided due to the dramatic consequences they would have for Palestinian civilians," Mattarella told the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.
On Tuesday an IDF statement announced that Israeli troops had begun a "precise" operation to "eliminate Hamas terrorists and dismantle Hamas terrorist infrastructure within specific areas of eastern Rafah".
An Israeli tank brigade moved into the Rafah crossing area after a night of intense air strikes and the UN warned that the closure of Rafah - where over a million Palestinians are sheltering amid the seven-month-old war against Hamas - meant the two main aid arteries were cut off.
Fighter jets and ground forces had also struck military structures, underground infrastructure and other sites from which Hamas operated in the Rafah area, killing approximately 20 "terrorists" the statement added.
"Further aggravation of the situation must be avoided," Mattarella said.
The "tensions and clashes of recent weeks” in the Middle East ”call for increased efforts by the international community to achieve de- escalation," he said.
"This is one of the objectives that Italy set itself in assuming the presidency of the G7, Mattarella stated.
Mattarella urged an end to "the chain of actions and reactions" to allow the start of a process "that will end the massacres and finally lead to a stable peace," he said.
Such a solution necessarily involves "the shared goal of full, mutual recognition of the two states of Israel and Palestine, with the definitive recognition of Israel and its security by the region's states", he added.
"In the immediate term, we are asked to respond to the moral imperative of giving assistance and alleviating the immense suffering of Gaza's civilian population," Mattarella underlined.
Financial support for the UN Palestinian aid agency UNRWA, the implementation of a UN Security Council mandated ceasefire, "unconditional" humanitarian access to Gaza and the release of hostages still held after the "inhumane" 7 October cross-border attack by Hamas ("the root cause" of Israel's war in Gaza) and the "immediate" end to terrorism and activities in support of it "remain the cornerstones on which to keep determinedly building joint diplomatic action," Mattarella argued.
“The bitterest and harshest conflict cannot allow the violation humanitarian law enshrined in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 to protect civilian populations," he concluded.
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