China on Tuesday called on Israel to stop its military operations in the Gaza Strip, following the deadly strikes in the southern city of Rafah.
Beijing “calls on Israel to stop all military operations as soon as possible, do everything possible to avoid casualties among innocent civilians and prevent the devastating humanitarian disaster in Rafah from worsening,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The ministry added that China “opposes and condemns” actions that harm civilians and violates international law.
Israel has announced plans to launch a ground offensive on Rafah, which is now more to nearly 1.4 million people seeking refuge from the war.
The planned offensive has sparked outrage and raised concerns of yet another humanitarian catastrophe in Rafah.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 28,340 Palestinians have been killed, and 67,984 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 8,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
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Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all of the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
(PC, AA)
