Jordanian king warns against potential Israeli attack on Rafah

AMMAN, Jordan

Jordan's King Abdullah II cautioned against an Israeli attack on the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah on Thursday and emphasized the need for deescalation and avoiding a widening of the conflict in the region, according to the Kingdom's Royal Court.

The Jordanian monarch stressed ''the need to reach an immediate and permanent cease-fire in Gaza, while protecting civilians and increasing the flow of aid through all possible means,'' in a telephone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, it said in a statement.

He noted ''the importance of creating a political horizon to achieve just and comprehensive peace on the basis of the two-state solution,'' it said.

The monarch urged ''stepping up efforts to de-escalate and prevent the expansion of the conflict in the region, warning of the dangerous consequences of the Israeli ground offensive on Rafah,'' it added.

Israeli fighter jets targeted a house in Rafah on Wednesday that was sheltering displaced people, killing six Palestinians, including a journalist.

Despite the global outcry about the catastrophic situation in the Palestinian enclave, the prime minister of Israel has long expressed his intention to attack Rafah -- the southernmost town in Gaza and one of the last significant communities spared from a ground invasion in the enclave.

Israel has waged a brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group, Hamas, on Oct. 7, which Tel Aviv said killed less than 1,200 people.

More than 34,300 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and nearly 77,300 injured amid mass destruction and severe shortages of necessities.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.