A group of 47 nongovernmental and humanitarian organisations sent a letter to US President Joe Biden highlighting the profound risks to the civilian population of Gaza’s Rafah city from an Israeli ground assault.

The joint letter states that no credible humanitarian plan can feasibly ensure the safety of the estimated 1.3 million people currently sheltering in Rafah.

“Displaced Palestinians in Rafah are effectively trapped with no safe alternatives. Many of them are too young, elderly, sick, starving, injured, or disabled to move again,” the letter states.

“Even in the absence of further military escalation, overcrowded conditions, the near total collapse of sanitation infrastructure, the spread of disease, and a dire scarcity of food, water, and medicine in Rafah could kill thousands more by August,” it adds.

The letter ends with a call for Biden to use all the influence of his administration to “prevent such an operation occurring in order to avoid further catastrophic loss of civilian lives”.