Gaza: Netanyahu assures that there will be no operation in Rafah as long as the “population is locked in place”

2024-03-17 17:36:00

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday that Israel would not launch a military operation in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, as long as the population was “locked in place.” “. However, he will not accept a peace that makes Israel “weak” in the face of its neighbors in the Middle East, while a possible truce in the Gaza Strip is currently being negotiated after more than five months of war.

“If we are offered an agreement, a path to peace that makes Israel weak and incapable of defending itself (…), this will set back peace,” he told the press, after a meeting with the German chancellor. Olaf Scholz.

Launching an operation in Rafah “is not something we will do while leaving the population locked in place. We will in fact do the opposite,” he said, while the prospect of such an assault is feared by the international community in this city where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are crowded together, according to the UN.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on Sunday for a “hostage agreement and a lasting ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip. He said he understood “the families of hostages who say that the time has come for an agreement to save those held captive.”