Right Group Issues Urgent Warning As Israel Aims at Rafah

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, named after the lawyer who coined the term genocide, issued an "urgent SOS warning" for Palestinians in Rafah. The city currently shelters over half of Gaza's population with nowhere else to go, amidst a flurry of Israeli airstrikes last week. The institute warned that these strikes could be the prelude to a promised ground invasion, especially given Rafah's strategic importance as home to the critical crossing to Egypt.

One of the Israeli strikes killed 11 members of a single family, prompting condemnation from the Lemkin Institute, which described the bombing as a genocidal act against a trapped civilian population.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Lemkin Institute echoed a growing number of US lawmakers from both chambers of Congress, urging Biden to comply with US laws prohibiting weapons transfers to countries that violate human rights and obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid, both of which Israel has done repeatedly since October.

"If the US president fails to act on his own words to prevent the further genocide of the people of Gaza and to behave in accordance with the rules-based international order he purports to prize," said the Lemkin Institute, "his betrayal of humanity will be remembered by the world forever."

Nearly 33,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its one-sided war on the territory in early October.