FLASH
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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said only the United States can stop Israel from launching a military offensive in the Gaza border town of Rafah.
He emphasized that such an offensive, which is expected within days, could force the majority of the Palestinian population to leave Gaza.
"We call on the United States of America to ask Israel not to carry out the attack in Rafah. America is the only country that is able to prevent Israel from committing this crime ," Abbas said during a meeting at the World Economic Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Israel has stepped up attacks on Rafah in the past week and has long threatened to occupy it and destroy the remaining battalions of Hamas (the group designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union).
Western countries, including Israel's biggest ally the US, have called on Israel not to occupy Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's population of 2.3 million have sought refuge from fighting in other parts of the territory.
"All the Palestinians of Gaza are gathered there. "The greatest catastrophe in the history of the Palestinian people would happen ," he said.
Yesterday morning, six people, including four children, were killed by an Israeli airstrike in Rafah.
Israel's war in Gaza against Hamas began on October 7, when members of the group killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped around 250 others during an attack in southern Israel.
More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed, two-thirds of them children and women, as a result of Israel's war in Gaza since then.
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