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International pressure was mounting on Israel and Egypt to allow aid into Gaza on Monday, as US secretary of state Antony Blinken was due to return to the Jewish state amid efforts to contain the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
The US and other countries have been pushing for the Rafah border crossing from Gaza to Egypt to be opened to allow foreign nationals to leave the strip, which Israel has been bombarding since Hamas militants launched a devastating assault on its territory on October 7.
Blinken said on Sunday that the crossing would reopen and that the US was working with Israel, Egypt and the UN to put in place a “mechanism by which to get the assistance in and to get it to people who need it”.
However, despite reports that Rafah could open at 9am local time on Monday, diplomats working on the issue said it had not opened, and the Israeli prime minister’s office and Hamas denied reports that a temporary ceasefire had been agreed to allow aid into the strip.
Two ministers from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline government also vehemently rejected the idea of opening the crossing, with energy minister Israel Katz saying he “bitterly opposes” such a step.
“Our commitment is to the families of the murdered and kidnapped hostages — not to the Hamas murderers and those who helped them,” Katz said.
Israel has cut off supplies of electricity, water, fuel and goods to Gaza and has ordered almost half of its 2.3mn people to leave the north of the strip as it pounds targets there ahead of an expected ground invasion. More than 1m people have been displaced, the UN humanitarian agency said.
Aid officials have warned that humanitarian conditions in Gaza have reached breaking point, while the UN said on Sunday evening that hospitals were likely to run out of fuel within 24 hours, putting the lives of thousands of patients at “immediate risk”.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the UN agency dealing with Palestinian refugees, said on Sunday that it was “no longer able to provide humanitarian assistance” and that “an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding under our eyes”.
Lazzarini added: “The number of people seeking shelter in our schools and other UNRWA facilities in the south is absolutely overwhelming, and we do not have any more the capacity to deal with them.”
According to Israeli officials, more than 1,400 people were killed during Hamas’s assault, while more than 3,000 were wounded and about 120 were taken hostage.
Palestinian health officials said on Monday that Israel’s bombardment had killed 2,750 people and injured 9,700, surpassing casualties recorded during the 50-day Israel-Gaza war of 2014.
The spiralling violence has sparked concerns that the fighting between Israel and Hamas could spill over into a regional conflict. Hizbollah, the Iran-backed militia in southern Lebanon, and Israeli forces have repeatedly exchanged fire across the border in recent days, while there has also been a surge of violence in the occupied West Bank.
Israel said on Monday that it would begin to evacuate the residents of 28 towns that lie within 2km of its border with Lebanon.
On Sunday, US president Joe Biden warned Iran against escalating the fighting between Hamas and Israel, while also saying that it would be a “big mistake” for Israel to reoccupy Gaza.
“Hamas and the extreme elements of Hamas don’t represent all the Palestinian people. And I think that . . . it would be a mistake . . . for Israel to occupy Gaza again,” Biden said in an interview with CBS, which was recorded on Thursday.
Hamas “must be eliminated entirely” but there “needs to be a Palestinian Authority” and a “path to a Palestinian state”, Biden said.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said in response that Israel had “no interest to occupy Gaza or to stay in Gaza”, but insisted it had to “obliterate” Hamas.
However, he gave no information on how Israel envisaged the enclave’s governance would work once Hamas had been defeated.
“We would like to be co-ordinated with our American allies. But for now, the only focus should be how to release the hostages, how to secure our future by obliterating Hamas’s capabilities,” he told CNN.
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