UNICEF warns against military operation in Rafah, where over 600,000 children, their families already displaced

UNICEF has warned against a military operation in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza, where over 600,000 children and their families-around a million people-have been displaced under the pressure of over four months of devastating war.

"An escalation of the fighting in Rafah, which is already straining under the extraordinary number of people who have been displaced from other parts of Gaza, will mark another devastating turn in a war that has reportedly killed over 27,000 people-most of them women and children," Catherine Russell, the agency's executive director, said in a statement on late Thursday.

Calling on parties to the conflict to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law, she added: "Military operations in densely populated residential areas can have indiscriminate effects."

The statement came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to take Israeli military operations into Rafah, saying the war on Gaza will continue until Israel can claim "total victory" against Hamas.

On Thursday, the US also warned that an Israeli military operation in Rafah "would be a disaster" for the more than 1 million displaced Palestinians sheltering there.

Israel launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip following an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas, killing at least 27,947 Palestinians and injuring 67,459 others, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli offensive has left 85% of Gaza's population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

An interim ruling last month by the International Court of Justice told Israel to cease its abuses, but most international observers say it has been flouting the ruling.