ISTANBUL

China on Tuesday asked Israel to put a stop to its military operations as attacks on the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah claimed dozens of lives in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Beijing "calls on Israel to stop all military operations as soon as possible, do everything possible to avoid casualties among innocent civilians and prevent the devastating humanitarian disaster in Rafah from worsening," said a Foreign Ministry statement.

It added that China "opposes and condemns" actions that harm civilians and violates international law.

Israel has announced plans to launch a ground offensive on Rafah, home to more than 1 million people seeking refuge from the war, to defeat what it says are the remaining "Hamas battalions."

The planned offensive has triggered concerns of a humanitarian catastrophe in Rafah.

Palestinians have sought refuge in the city as Israel pounded the rest of the enclave since a cross-border incursion by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7. The ensuing Israeli bombardment has killed more than 28,000 people and caused mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which said in an interim ruling that South Africa's claims in a case filed in December were plausible.