Despite international warnings, Israel persisted, Thursday, February 15, in its plan to launch a military operation in Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are hiding in appalling conditions. “We will fight until complete victory, which involves powerful action in Rafah and this, after allowing the civilian population to leave the combat zones”, stormed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his Telegram account. Follow our live stream.
Talks in progress. Negotiations for a truce including new releases of Hamas hostages and Palestinians detained by Israel continue in Cairo, under the mediation of Qatar and Egypt. After a meeting on Tuesday attended by the head of Mossad, the Israeli secret service, the director of the CIA, the Prime Minister of Qatar, and Egyptian officials, these negotiations were to continue until Friday.
Hospitals submerged. The WHO has once again denounced the situation of hospitals in Gaza, “completely submerged, overwhelmed and insufficiently supplied.” Staff must carry out amputations due to lack of means to treat patients, the local WHO representative from Gaza testified. “One of my colleagues described the situation in Rafah as a ‘pressure cooker of despair’. If it ‘explodes’ it could have catastrophic consequences,” the director of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs lamented to franceinfo.
International calls to avoid any attack. After the United States, Israel’s main ally, Australia, Canada and New Zealand warned the Netanyahu government against an operation “catastrophic” in Rafah. French President Emmanuel Macron ordered Benjamin Netanyahu to “cease” Israeli military operations in Gaza, because “the human toll and the humanitarian situation” were “intolerable”.