< p>Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said today at a press conference in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, that only the United States can stop Israel from attacking the border town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, indicating that he expects the attack in the coming days, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
"We call on the US to ask Israel to stop the Rafah operation because America is the only country capable of preventing Israel from committing this crime,'' Abbas said at a summit in Saudi Arabia, pointing out that such an operation, announced by Israeli officials, would be "the greatest disaster in the history of the Palestinian people.
Israel, which for weeks has threatened to launch a full-scale offensive against the city to wipe out the remaining Hamas battalions there, stepped up airstrikes on Rafah last week.
Western nations, including Israel's closest ally the United States, have urged Tel Aviv to refrain from attacking the southern city, which sits on the Egyptian border and is home to more than one million Palestinians who have fled a seven-month Israeli assault on most of the Gaza Strip.
"The question of what will happen in the next few days is what Israel will do by attacking Rafah, because all the Palestinians from Gaza are gathered there,", Abbas said, adding that even a "small strike" against the city will force the Palestinian population to leave the Gaza Strip. "Then the greatest catastrophe in the history of the Palestinian people will happen," he added.
Abbas reiterated his rejection of the displacement of Palestinians in Jordan and Egypt, and stressed that he feared that after ending its operations in Gaza, Israel would try to force the Palestinian population to leave the West Bank and move to Jordan .
Israel launched its military offensive against "Hamas" in the Gaza Strip after the attack on the southern part of the country on October 7, when about 1,200 people were killed and 253 were taken hostage. Since then, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza's health ministry, and much of the enclave's population has been displaced.