Israel’s planned ground assault on Rafah in the Gaza Strip would contravene the orders issued by the United Nation’s highest court, the UN human rights chief said, AFP reports.

“I fail to see how such an operation could be consistent with the binding provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice,” Volker Turk told the UN Human Rights Council.

“The prospect of an Israeli ground assault on Rafah would take the nightmare being inflicted on people in Gaza into a new dimension,” said Turk.

He repeated that the Hamas attacks on Israel in October were “shocking, profoundly traumatising and totally unjustifiable”.

“The killing of civilians, reports of torture and sexual violence inflicted by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, and the holding of hostages since that time, are appalling and entirely wrong,” he said.

“And so is the brutality of the Israeli response,” he added, calling it “carnage”.