CAIRO, April 28. /TASS/. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas thinks that Israel’s military operation in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip will kick off in the next couple of days.

"In a few days, Israel will launch a military operation in the city of Rafah because all the Palestinians remaining in Gaza have gathered there and one direct strike is enough to make them all leave Palestinian territory," he said on the sidelines of a special session of the World Economic Forum in Riyadh. According to him, if this happens, "the world will witness the largest catastrophe in Palestine’s history" given that neighboring Egypt and Jordan "resolutely refused to accept Palestinian refugees."

He proposed to hold an international conference in order to unite Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza as a single political formation. He added that "all the countries that have not yet recognized the state of Palestine’s right to independence should do so, much like they recognized Israel’s independence." He stressed that only on these terms the Palestinians "can hold full-fledged and equitable dialogue with the Israeli side."

Abbas addressed the US as "the sole country that can stop Israel" demanding to make the Jewish state abandon its plans for a potential operation in Rafah.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the Gaza-based Palestinian radical group Hamas staged a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel has declared a state of war readiness; announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians; and began delivering air strikes on the enclave and certain parts of Lebanon and Syria, followed by a ground operation in the enclave. Clashes are underway in the West Bank as well.