Global concern has mounted over the military conflict now in its sixth month, in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas in response to a deadly attack by its fighters on October 7.
The latest fighting included an Israeli assault on Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, a vast complex crowded with patients and people seeking refuge, where Israel says Palestinian militants are holed up.
Overnight bombings and battles across the territory killed 90 people, said the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, pushing the overall Palestinian death toll close to 32,000.
FILE—People and first responders search the rubble of a building that collapsed following an Israeli air strike in the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip on March 20, 2024.
Umm Abdullah Alwan, who lives in a makeshift tent in the southern city of Rafah, told AFP her children "screamed in fear" when a storm hit because "we can't tell the difference between the sound of rain and the sound of shelling."
U.N. agencies have warned that Gaza's 2.4 million people are on the brink of famine, and U.N. rights chief Volker Turk said Israel may be using "starvation as a method of war."
The dire plight of Palestinians and the fate of Israeli hostages held in Gaza have pushed negotiators back to the table in Qatar to try to thrash out a truce deal, but officials have so far reported little progress.
The United States, long Israel's top ally, has also ratcheted up its diplomatic efforts and increasingly voiced concern over humanitarian issues.
US Secretary of State Blinken, who landed in regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia, has warned that Gaza's "entire population" is suffering "severe levels of acute food insecurity."
Feared Rafah invasion
As Blinken began his visit, Riyadh announced it would donate $40 million to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which has been central to aid operations in Gaza but has faced massive funding cuts and calls for its abolition spearheaded by Israel.
"The funding will provide food for more than 250,000 people and tents for 20,000 families," the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center said in a statement.
FILE—Palestinian children receive cooked food rations as part of a volunteer youth initiative in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on March 5, 2024.
Blinken is also due in Israel on Friday, where he will meet with leaders to discuss the release of hostages, humanitarian aid and a planned Israeli assault on Rafah, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
Rafah, the last area in Gaza to remain free from a large-scale invasion, is now home to some 1.5 million Palestinians, many of them sheltering in tents along the Egyptian border after fleeing from other parts of the coastal territory.
The US wants Israel to hold back from a full-scale ground assault citing concern for civilians, but Netanyahu has repeatedly said it was the only way to eradicate Hamas.
Israel has continued to bombard Rafah and on Wednesday said it had "eliminated senior Hamas operatives" in the city.
FILE—U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, left, during Blinken's trip aimed at calming tensions, at the Kirya, in Tel Aviv, Israel, January 9, 2024.
On Thursday, Blinken is due to visit Egypt, the main entry point for aid deliveries to Gaza and a key mediator in truce efforts.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant will visit Washington in the coming week for talks with Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, though neither side gave a date.
Netanyahu's office said a separate delegation would visit Washington at "the request of US President Joe Biden" to discuss the planned Rafah assault.
The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas's unprecedented attack on October 7 resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages, of whom Israel believes 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 who are presumed dead.
Relatives and friends of the captives, who have consistently lobbied for action to get them freed, held several protests on Wednesday, including blocking a main road in Tel Aviv.
Israel's military has waged a relentless offensive against Hamas that has killed at least 31,923 people, most of them women and children, according to Gaza's health ministry.
'Step backwards'
Mediators have met for a third day in Qatar in a renewed effort to secure a ceasefire, but there was little indication of an imminent agreement.
FILE — Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan at a rally organized by Lebanon's militant Hezbollah in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, May 17, 2021.
A source with knowledge of the negotiations, speaking on condition of anonymity because of their sensitivity, told AFP talks between technical teams in Doha "are ongoing."
But a senior Hamas official based in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, said Israel's response to the group's latest proposal was "largely negative... and constitutes a step backwards."
The plan would temporarily halt the fighting as hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners and the delivery of relief supplies is stepped up.
In an effort to send aid to Gaza by sea, Cyprus said it would host on Thursday a meeting with representatives of 35 countries and several UN agencies on a maritime corridor, which has so far seen one vessel reach the long-blockaded territory.
UN and humanitarian officials have warned sea or air deliveries can only provide a fraction of the supplies needed, urging Israel to allow more trucks into Gaza by land.
The war has meanwhile ground on unabated, with Israel saying its forces had "killed approximately 90 terrorists" around Al-Shifa hospital during a days-long assault.
FILE —Israel Katz, Foreign Minister to the United Nations at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., March 11, 2024.
As the war has drawn greater global scrutiny, a Canadian official said the country would halt all arms shipments to Israel, a decision Foreign Minister Israel Katz argued on social media "undermines Israel's right to self-defence."
In October, Canada had already limited shipments to non-lethal equipment.
In Washington, a group of Senate Democrats called on Biden's administration to take "bold" action towards establishing a Palestinian state.
Nineteen senators said in a letter the conflict had "reached an inflection point" and that they have been "particularly disappointed" by Netanyahu's "refusal to engage on a path to a Palestinian state."