Editorial: Inflicting further violence on the people of Gaza is indefensible

For Tánaiste Micheál Martin to be on the Rafah border on the day Israel announced a sweep of displaced Palestinian civilians who have been sheltering there was certainly portentous.

At the end of his two-day visit to the region, Mr Martin said he was pessimistic about the prospects of a ceasefire in Gaza, and was worried about an Israeli assault on Rafah.

“Humanitarian agencies in Rafah will not be able to sustain an invasion, and there’s an urgent need for the international community to make it very, very clear to Israel that an invasion cannot be countenanced,” he said.

He added the conflict in Gaza wasn’t “just a war on Hamas” and that the people of Gaza are being ”collectively punished”.

Alarm has been building over a ground offensive as Rafah’s population has swollen to 2.3 million by Palestinians who fled there for sanctuary. The UN and the US have consistently warned any such operation risks driving an already spiralling death toll even higher.

With the humanitarian situation dangerously deteriorating, Tel Aviv has been under intense pressure to hold back. But the appearance of a large military encampment suggests Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is turning a deaf ear to international calls for restraint.

Israel insists Hamas’s leadership, and Israeli hostages, are also in Rafah.

Its bombardment has continued across Gaza, including in Rafah, where about 20 people, mostly children, were killed in airstrikes on Saturday.

Aerial strikes and ground operations in Gaza have killed 34,183 people, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Reports from Tel Aviv said the Israeli government had decided to carry out an operation in Rafah “very soon”. It is understood Israeli troops would enter Rafah in stages. Given the density of people in Rafah, the possibility of further mass civilian deaths would not be avoided.

An offensive could also lead to the brink of a wider war, which was narrowly avoided after the recent showdown between Israel and Iran.

Referring to the already appalling death toll in Gaza, Mr Martin said he believed there would be “much worse” found “buried under the rubble” when the conflict eventually concludes.

He also said the world “cannot go on” with the type of warfare being seen. He decried the levelling of residential houses and flattening of cities.

“This has become the new norm in the waging of war. We see it in Syria, we see it in Ukraine, we see it in Gaza and the world has to call a halt,”he said.

Far from slowing down, the lethal intensity of the war seems to be growing.

Surely after so much needless death and destruction not only is any argument for stepping up the violence void, but indefensible.