Egypt Daily News - US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned again against launching a large-scale Israeli attack on the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, saying that Israel had not presented a plan to protect civilians.

“In the absence of such a plan, we cannot support a broad military operation in Rafah, because the damage it will cause exceeds what is acceptable,” Blinken said before the McCain Institute’s “Sedona” Forum in Arizona, according to the “Times of Israel” newspaper on Saturday.

He continued, "While Israeli officials have repeatedly pledged to enter Rafah, citing the need to eliminate the remaining Hamas forces in the city, which is located in the far south of the Gaza Strip, there are better ways to do what Israel must do, with regard to dealing with what is... "The Hamas problem remains."

Blinken said last Wednesday that he had not yet seen a plan for Israel's scheduled attack on the city of Rafah that would guarantee the protection of civilians, and he reiterated that Washington could not support such an attack.

The website of the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth (Ynet) quoted Blinken as saying to reporters: “We cannot support, and will not support, a large military operation in Rafah in the absence of a practical plan that provides a guarantee that civilians will not be harmed, and on our part we have not seen such a plan.” .