'Genocidal Massacres’: Saudi Arabia Rebukes Israel Over Rafah As Normalisation Efforts Falter

Saudi Arabia has condemned in the strongest terms what it describes as “the continuous genocidal massacres” committed by Israeli forces against the Palestinian people in the Gazan city of Rafah.

This criticism comes as Palestinian residents of the southern Gaza city of Rafah have reported an escalation of fighting as Israeli forces pressed on the border town once seen as the territory’s last refuge. Israel says it is carrying out limited operations in eastern Rafah along the Gaza-Egypt border, as the United States and other allies of Israel have warned against a full-fledged offensive in the city.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s condemnation and denunciation in the strongest terms the continuous genocidal massacres committed by the Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian people without deterrence by continuing to target the tents of defenseless Palestinian refugees in Rafah. The Kingdom holds the Israeli authorities fully responsible for what is happening in Rafah and all across the occupied Palestinian territories,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“The Kingdom also affirms that the Israeli occupation forces’ continuous blatant violations of all international and humanitarian resolutions, laws, and norms, in light of the silence of the international community, exacerbate the magnitude of the unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe experienced by the Palestinian people. It puts the credibility of the institutions of international legitimacy at stake,” it added.

Israeli shelling and airstrikes west of Rafah killed at least 37 people overnight and on Tuesday, most of them sheltering in tents, according to witnesses, emergency workers and hospital officials. The strikes pummeled the same area where strikes on Sunday triggered a deadly fire that engulfed tents in a camp for displaced Palestinians, killing 45 people. Israel’s army rejected allegations that it had carried out Tuesday’s strike in a designated humanitarian area.

Earlier, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the strike a “tragic accident”, while the army said it had targeted a Hamas compound and killed two senior members of the group. The military later said the weapons it had used “could not” have caused the deadly camp blaze. “Our munition alone could not have ignited a fire of this size,” Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli army, said ahead of Tuesday’s emergency UN session on the strike.

(With agency inputs)