CAPRI: Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven nations said Friday they opposed a "full-scale military operation in Rafah" by Israel as that would have "catastrophic consequences on the civilian population".
Ministers from Italy, the UK, US, France, Germany, Japan and Canada also slammed the "unacceptable number of civilians" killed in Gaza during Israel's military offensive. Israel has vowed to send troops into Gaza's overcrowded Rafah area in its war against Palestinian groups.
"We reiterate our opposition to a full scale military operation in Rafah that would have catastrophic consequences on the civilian population," the ministers said in a statement.
Israel has faced growing global opposition to the relentless war that has reduced much of Gaza to rubble, while its 2.4 million people have suffered under an Israeli siege. "We deplore all losses of civilian lives," G7 ministers said at meeting on Italy's island of Capri.
They said they "note with great concern the unacceptable number of civilians, including thousands of women, children and persons in vulnerable situations who have been killed in Gaza".
The war started after unprecedented attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people in southern Israel, according to Israeli official figures. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 33,970 people in Gaza, mostly women and children. according to the territory's health ministry.
Meanwhile in the West Bank, dozens of Jewish settlers raided his village of Al-Mughayyir, north of Ramallah.
Armed with rifles and Molotov cocktails, they set houses ablaze, killed sheep, wounded 23 people and displaced 86, according to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA. One Palestinian was also killed in the violence.
Al-Mughayyir's mayor, Amin Abu Alyah, said the settlers, who were part of the search party for Achimeir, burnt "everything they found in front of them" including houses, a bulldozer and vehicles.
Several citizens tried to organise protection committees to defend themselves from raids, but were prevented from doing so, he said. "We currently have more than 70 prisoners inside Israeli prisons on charges of joining protection committees or trying to form an organised body," he said.
In the nearby village of Duma, five kilometres north of Al-Mughayyir, old fears came true when hundreds of settlers came down through the surrounding fields. Duma residents, like many West Bank villagers, say they are not protected neither by Palestinian security, which is only allowed to operate in 40 percent of the territory, nor by Israel, which controls the rest.
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