Residents of eastern Rafah are fleeing the city as the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of civilians in anticipation of a ground operation in Rafah on Saturday (local time). However, it is not possible to safely evacuate the majority of the 1.4 million people who are still clustered in the area. Reuters

Israel has eventually launched a ground operation against Rafah, the “last refuge” of the Gaza Strip. Despite international condemnation, Israel launched airstrikes on more than 50 sites in Rafah and then marched tanks into the outskirts of the city. Rafah (64 square kilometers), which is smaller than Bundang, Gyeonggi Province, in Korea, is currently home to more than 1.4 million displaced people. A full-scale ground war would be a humanitarian disaster of the worst kind. How long will Israel continue to turn a blind eye and deaf ear as anti-war protests calling for a ceasefire spread on university campuses around the world?

Israel's launch of the ground operation in Rafah came shortly after reports emerged on May 6 (local time) that Hamas had agreed to accept a ceasefire arbitration plan proposed by Egypt. Israel rejected a ceasefire and launched airstrikes across the city and seized control of the Rafah checkpoint with tanks. The jubilation of Gazans who poured into the streets in anticipation of a ceasefire quickly turned to fear and despair.

Israel insists that a ground war in Rafah is necessary to root out Hamas, which hides among the civilians in the city. The problem is that it is impossible to safely evacuate the 1.4 million civilians who have been pushed from northern Gaza to central Gaza and back to southern Rafah by Israeli evacuation orders. A ground attack on Rafah would likely result in the indiscriminate killing of civilians.

Despite this, Gaza has reached its limit. In the name of hunting down Hamas hiding in hospitals, the Israeli military has indiscriminately attacked medical staff and patients, and has blocked the import of relief food, leading to people dying of hunger. Many humanitarian rules have been broken in the course of the war, but the all-out war on Rafah will be a tragedy that will go down in human history.

The largest anti-war protests in 56 years since the Vietnam War are taking place on campuses around the world. At Columbia University, hundreds of students occupying the campus were arrested by police and even its graduation ceremony was canceled. Protests have spread to other universities in the U.S., including Harvard and MIT, as well as to France, Germany, Mexico, and Lebanon. The devastation in Gaza is not a story from the other side of the world. If the erosion of the rules-based world order is allowed to continue, the repercussions could extend beyond Gaza and the Middle East and eventually reach Korea, a security risk zone. Israel must immediately halt its plan to attack Rafah and agree to a ceasefire.