Father Ibrahim Falta, Father Gabriel Romanelli and, from Egypt, Father Rafic Greice launch appeals to avert the Israeli incursion into Rafah, which risks causing a “final drama” for the Gaza Strip and its population
(AsiaNews) – First in the north, Gaza, then Khan Younis and today Rafah. The attention and concern of the international community is now concentrated in the southernmost area of the Strip. In the Palestinian enclave, the far-right Israeli government has launched a bloody war for over four months (over 28 thousand victims, largely civilians, including women and children), in response to the Hamas attack on 7 October which caused 1,200 deaths in Israel. Where the southern gate of entry into the Strip is located, on the border with Egypt, they are crowded up to 1.4 million refugees who abandoned their homes following the advance of the military of the Jewish State. Now, however, there is no escape route left and the announced ground offensive, preceded in recent days by heavy bombing by fighters with the Star of David which touched refugee camps and destroyed a mosque, could have “disastrous” consequences according to the UN. AND meanwhile humanitarian law continues to be trampled upon.
Egypt freezes Camp David?
By moving further and further south, the front of Israel’s war on Hamas risks also involving Egypt, which is closely observing what is happening just a few meters from its territory. The government in Cairo relaunches efforts for a ceasefire and the achievement of a “radical solution” to the crisis, exploring every diplomatic avenue – for now – in an attempt to start “serious peace negotiations”. The country of the pharaohs has repeatedly reiterated in recent hours its opposition to a ground operation, with more uncertain consequences than ever and which risks starting a mass exodus of desperate people who no longer have anywhere else to escape the bombs. According to Cairo, striking Rafah and, in parallel, continuing to prevent the entry of aid into the Strip risks worsening a humanitarian catastrophe already underway, which is why it does not exclude the possibility of suspending the Camp David peace treaties with Israel. And open a further front of international crisis in a Middle Eastern area where outbreaks of war and tension are multiplying.
«The escalation of Rafah – explains ad AsiaNews Father Rafic Greicheformer president of the Media Committee of the Council of Churches of Egypt and spokesperson of the Egyptian Catholic Church – it is very dangerous. Israel wants to take the borders, it also bombs the wall that separates the Gaza Strip from Egypt and which allows the transit of Palestinians towards Sinai.” For the priest, what is happening in the last few days «represents a serious problem escalation, because the Israelis are embarking on a very, very big adventure. I hope nothing irreparable happens – she warns – and, above all, that there isn’t a new war between Israel and Egypt because the risk is real and concrete.”
Then there is a second element, he continues, which is the intense diplomatic work that Cairo is carrying out behind the scenes and involves Israel, Hamas, the United States and Qatar “to arrive at a ceasefire” and that theescalation at the borders can compromise. «If Israel really wanted peace – says Father Rafic – it would make no sense to fuel the war in the south, in Rafah, on the borders. This is truly an adventure with unpredictable results also because although the Egyptian army is not as strong and numerous as Israel’s, the danger is great for everyone.”
Rafah: Israel blocks aid
«We Egyptians – says the priest – want peace», while across the border the Jewish State seems willing to proceed regardless of the consequences, also because «those who will pay the price will not be Hamas, but the inhabitants of Gaza: elderly people, women, children who die every day” and already today the results are also visible in Egyptian territory. «Egypt is trying to help the people in the Strip, trying to ensure that goods and aid enter Rafah – says Father Rafic – but the Israelis prevent this by placing ultra-Orthodox at the borders who block the passage of humanitarian convoys». From the country of the pharaohs, the common opinion is that “the Israelis are trying to provoke a mass exodus of the population towards Egypt”, underlines Father Rafic, evoking the (feared) second Nakba already mentioned on several occasions in recent days by analysts and humanitarian workers in the field. «Israel – he concludes – seems to want to empty the Strip and then be able to occupy it, this seems to be the impression of us Egyptians. This is also why the government is threatening to freeze all the Camp David Accords (which led to the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty of 1979 – ndr) and this is very dangerous.”
Concerns, those of the Egyptian priest, shared on the Israeli-Palestinian front by father Ibrahim Misdemeanors, vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land in Jerusalem. «A situation that is becoming increasingly serious – he says – as emerges from the very high number of deaths in the last few hours. From the victims to the 1.4 million refugees crowded together, up to the threat of freezing Camp David – continues the religious man – we are faced with a dangerous escalation». The Strip risks being transformed «into an open-air cemetery, which is why as the Church of the Holy Land we renew the appeal for a ceasefire, the only way to peace. No to violence, no to war and return to negotiations after 130 days of conflict and a number of dead and wounded that exceeded 100 thousand”. And from this perspective, a land invasion in Rafah “would be a disaster, the final drama for which today more than ever – concludes Father Ibrahim – the international community is called to intervene”.
A people trapped
The testimonies coming from Rafah are increasingly dramatic, with images of families sleeping on the streets or, the more “lucky” ones, in tents in the freezing cold, all united by the vain search for food, water, medicines or blankets. Added to the original residents was the massive and progressive exodus from the north, for a population density today of 22 thousand inhabitants per square km, a number that is already unsustainable in the short term. However, even in the north, in Gaza, the reality remains of extreme emergency as underlined by ad AsiaNews il parish priest of the Holy Family Father Gabriel RomanelliSince the beginning of the conflict, he has been unable to return to his people due to the closure of the borders imposed by Israel. And that from the outside, in constant contact with Pope Francis “whom I hear almost every day” and with the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa tries to coordinate the (few) aid and show the face of solidarity and closeness to a trapped people . «The Christians of Gaza – underlines the Argentine priest of the Incarnate Word – live in a condition of continuous anxiety and worry. On the one hand they hope for a truce, which will arrive quickly and permanently, even though the reality on the other is very serious.”
The attack on Rafah, continues Father Romanelli, «is very scary, because it is the only contact left with the outside world, and the open-air prison has now turned into a cage. In the parish we host 600 people, in the Greek Orthodox church there are another 200, while 200 Christians are in the south where they had gone in recent weeks with the prospect of leaving, some emigrating to Australia, but they too were stranded. No one can leave and everyone, from Gaza to Khan Younis, up to Rafah, has been bombed”, but what is most worrying now is “how to manage 1 million 400 thousand people” – according to some, up to 1.8 people have been displaced millions – who find themselves amassed at the border. Finally, the parish priest of Gaza underlines the dramatic humanitarian conditions of the population, in which people die as happened for Hani Abu Daoud even for diseases that are easily treatable externally. «He had four children, the last one just a few months old – he concludes – but he died alone. This tragedy must be stopped, because every day, every hour means more victims, more injured in a tragedy that is becoming bigger and bigger.”