Mideast on 'verge of the abyss,' as Gaza suffers

Israeli forces kept up their bombardment of Gaza yesterday after diplomatic efforts to arrange a ceasefire to allow foreign citizens to leave and aid to be brought into the besieged Palestinian enclave failed.

Residents of Hamas-ruled Gaza said overnight air strikes were the heaviest yet as the conflict entered its 10th day with an Israeli ground offensive of the densely populated coastal strip believed to be imminent.

Bombing carried on through the day, they said, and many buildings were flattened, trapping yet more people under the rubble. Israeli officials issued multiple warnings of Hamas rocket fire into Israel, reports Reuters. 

Diplomatic efforts have been underway to get aid into the enclave, which has endured unrelenting Israeli bombing since the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants that killed 1,300 people - the bloodiest single day in the state's 75-year history.

Further escalation of the long-running conflict increasingly risks spilling over regionally, prompting the Pentagon to order a second carrier strike group and squadrons of fighter jets to the region as a deterrence to Iran and Iranian proxies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.

"We are on the verge of the abyss in the Middle East," United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in a statement Sunday.

He issued urgent appeals to Israel and Hamas: "To Hamas, the hostages must be released immediately without conditions. To Israel, rapid and unimpeded aid must be granted for humanitarian supplies and workers for the sake of the civilians in Gaza."

"Each one of these two objectives are valid in themselves. They should not become bargaining chips and they must be implemented because it is the right thing to do," he said.

For days, Israel has cut off the Gaza population's access to electricity, food and water, prompting warnings of dire humanitarian crisis, according to CNN

Pope Francis on Sunday also called for the establishment of humanitarian corridors in Gaza and for the release of hostages taken by Hamas.

An over a week of bombardment, Israeli airstrikes have killed least 2,670 people in Gaza, including hundreds of children, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Casualties in the besieged strip over the past eight days have now surpassed the number of those killed during the 51-day Gaza-Israel conflict in 2014, a ministry spokesperson said.

A growing number of nations, global rights groups and organizations are calling on Israel to respect international rules of war, urging the protection of civilians' lives, and not to target hospitals, schools and clinics in densely inhabited Gaza. Many families, some of whom were already internally displaced, are now crammed into an even smaller portion of the 140-square-mile territory.

Hamas rocket attacks on Israel have meanwhile continued into the weekend. A barrage on the city of Sderot saw residents being evacuated to other areas of the country on Sunday.

Calls for Israel to respect rules of war

Gaza is suffering shortages of every kind, including body bags, say aid groups. Internet access, through which residents communicate their plight to the world, is shrinking. Food stocks are dwindling, the World Food Programme has warned.

Hospitals have run out of painkillers and many Gazans are beginning to suffer from severe dehydration due to lack of drinking water, according to medical NGO Medecins sans Frontieres.

"The situation is very difficult…today for two hours we searched for drinkable water—even drinkable water is not available anymore," said Dr. Mohammed Abu Mughaiseeb, the organization's deputy medical coordinator in Gaza. "There is food. No electricity, no pumping of normal water as well, the hospitals are barely working… They are bombing all day. We don't know what's going to [happen] tomorrow and where we are going."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office told CNN Sunday that Israel has restored water to southern Gaza, where many Gazans have been told to flee. However, the director of the Water Authority there said he didn't know if water was available because the electricity necessary to pump water for use had not been restored.

Israel is also in the process of creating a humanitarian zone where food, water and other provisions could be accessed in Gaza, Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog told CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday.

The UN could not confirm the plan. "What we can tell you is that we have nothing to confirm at this time, but obviously we have been working round the clock with various interlocutors to ensure humanitarian access in Gaza," the spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, Stéphane Dujarric told CNN.

Aid has been piling up on the Egyptian side of Rafa crossing, the only entrypoint into Gaza that Israel does not control.

But so far, the crossing appears nonfunctional; Egypt says that airstrikes on the Gaza side have made roads inoperable, and Jordan has said it is seeking assurance that aid convoys will not be targeted by Israeli warplanes.

Footage on Sunday showed aid deliveries continuing to arrive into Egypt's El-Arish stadium in preparation to enter Gaza once the Rafah crossing is open.

On the Gazan side, thousands of people are stuck at the crossing, with several citizens of the US and other countries telling CNN they have been unable to leave the embattled territory.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised Sunday that "Rafah will be open," after meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

"We're putting in place with the UN, with Egypt, Israel, with others, the mechanism by which to get the assistance in and to get it to people who need it," Blinken said.

He also announced the appointment of former US Ambassador to Turkey David Satterfield to help coordinate US aid efforts. Satterfield will be "on the ground tomorrow" in Israel, he said.

El-Sisi said on Sunday during his meeting with Blinken that Israel's response to the deadly Hamas attack had gone beyond its right to self-defense.

It "amounts to the collective punishment of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians," he said.

His criticism echoed that of several rights groups, with Amnesty International and Norwegian Refugee Council describing the forced relocation of civilians as a violation of international law earlier in the week.

'Currently no truce'

Israel has imposed a full blockade and is preparing a ground invasion to enter Gaza and destroy Hamas, which has continued to fire rockets at Israel since its cross-border assault. On Monday, warning sirens sounded in several towns in southern Israel, the Israeli military said. 

Israeli troops and tanks are already massed on the border.

Authorities in Gaza said at least 2,750 people had so far been killed by the Israeli strikes, a quarter of them children, and nearly 10,000 wounded. A further 1,000 people were missing and believed to be under rubble.

With food, fuel and water running short, hundreds of tons of aid from several countries have been held up in Egypt pending a deal for its safe delivery to Gaza and the evacuation of some foreign passport holders through the Rafah border crossing.

Earlier on Monday, Egyptian security sources had said an agreement had been reached to open the crossing to allow aid into the enclave.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said: "There is currently no truce and humanitarian aid in Gaza in exchange for getting foreigners out."

Hamas official Izzat El Reshiq told Reuters there was "no truth" to the reports about the crossing opening or a temporary ceasefire.

Egypt has said the crossing was rendered inoperable due to Israeli bombardments on the Palestinian side.

U.S. officials were hoping the Rafah crossing could be opened for a few hours later on Monday to allow some people to leave Gaza before the expected Israeli ground offensive, White House spokesman John Kirby told CNN.

The United States had told its citizens in Gaza to go to the crossing. It estimates the number of dual-citizen Palestinian-Americans in Gaza at 500 to 600.