To address Gaza's urgent human needs, diplomats

 To address Gaza's urgent human needs, diplomats

On Sunday, diplomats were engaged in frantic negotiations to resolve the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza as an Israeli invasion looked to be drawing near.

In the midst of worries of a broader conflict, the US was also moving a second aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean.

The United Nations secretary-general, António Guterres, encapsulated these worries on Sunday when he remarked, "We are on the verge of the abyss in the Middle East."

The "siege" of Gaza, as described by Israeli authorities, has resulted in severe shortages of food, water, petroleum, and other necessities in the blockaded region. Representatives from the United States, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern nations worked to ameliorate this situation.

Lines of trucks were seen idling on the route to Gaza in the Egyptian city of Arish on Sunday. These vehicles were around 30 miles from the border, which they were not permitted to pass.

Jake Sullivan, the White House national security advisor, said on Sunday that Israel has agreed to restore water to a pipeline that fed a southern section of the enclave after days of severe water shortages in Gaza.

More than 2 million people in Gaza experienced a terrified countdown to the anticipated launch of a ground assault in northern Gaza as Israeli forces gathered at the border.

At the first official meeting of Israel's new emergency wartime cabinet on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised ministers, "We will take Hamas apart," according to a statement from his office. Israel has activated 360,000 military reservists for service as a wounded nation prepared for war and split between anxiety and rage.

Israel's finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, acknowledged in a speech on Sunday night that the government had failed to keep the nation secure.

Smotrich remarked, alluding to the Hamas assaults eight days earlier that resulted in the bloodiest killings of Israeli citizens since the nation was founded seventy-five years prior: "We must confess, with honesty and grief and with our heads bowed: We have failed. "We did not manage to fulfill the most important, unwritten contract between a state and its citizens."

Additionally, the Israeli military declared a "path to safety" through the streets of northern Gaza. For many hours on Sunday in the late morning and early afternoon, the military announced it would refrain from attacking the area along the highway.

"During this window, please take the opportunity to move southward from northern Gaza," according to the military. Israel had urged Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza for the third day in a row, and on Saturday it littered the streets with flyers urging them to do so.

According to estimates from the UN, approximately 1 million Gazans have been forced to leave their homes. However, those in the enclave's northern regions claim that relocation is difficult. On Sunday, the injured poured into Al Shifa Hospital, the biggest medical facility in the Gaza Strip. According to the hospital's director, Dr. Muhammad Abu Salima, moving the patients would be both logistically and medically risky.

Round-the-clock Israel kept up its assault of Gaza. Over the course of the first week of combat, the Israeli air force dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza, with the majority of its attacks occurring in the north.

The military claimed that the targeted victims were operational command centers, military complexes, anti-tank missile launch sites, and "observation posts," despite the fact that many of the targets were located in crowded metropolitan areas. Israel claims that Hamas militants hide in houses, schools, and hospitals while living among civilians.

Additionally, a missile fired from an Israeli fighter plane killed Billal Al Kedra, who Israel alleged was the Hamas leader in charge of the slaughter in Israel's Kibbutz Nirim on October 7.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, at least 2,670 individuals have died in Gaza as a result of Israeli reprisal attacks during the last week. On Sunday, Palestinian news outlets claimed that an Israeli attack on a house in Rafah, close to the now-closed Egypt border crossing, had resulted in the deaths of at least 17 family members.

Over the weekend, Israeli authorities announced that at least 258 of the 1,300 persons killed in Israel by Hamas terrorists during the attack on October 7 were Israeli troops. 377 patients were still receiving medical attention for injuries they got in the Hamas strikes, Israel's hospitals said on Sunday.

Geopolitics hung over the fight as the death toll rose. China and Egypt, a neighbor of Israel, both criticized its actions in Gaza.

Both nations' condemnation was expressed in terminology that was comparable. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt claimed that Israel's war on Gaza had gone beyond "the right of self-defense" and turned into "a collective punishment," according to The Associated Press, just before his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday.

When the president rebuked the secretary for expressing last week that, as a Jew, he had been profoundly impacted by the Hamas assaults, the conversation between Blinken and el-Sissi became personal. In response, Blinken said, "I come as a human being appalled by the atrocities by Hamas."

According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Prince Faisal bin Farhan received a message from China's Wang Yi, who said that "Israel's actions have already gone beyond self-defense," from his Saudi counterpart.

Palestine "should conscientiously listen to the calls of the international community and secretary-general of the United Nations, and halt collective punishment of the people of Gaza," Wang was cited as saying by the ministry.

The remarks were in sharp contrast to several Republican voices in the U.S. Congress who claimed that Israel should be free to pursue Hamas without any constraint.

On "Fox News Sunday," Republican senator from Arkansas Tom Cotton said that Hamas is to blame for "anything that happens in Gaza."

However, over the weekend, artillery fire between the Israeli military and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon fanned worries of a bigger battle. At least one Israeli was killed and three others were injured in an assault on the Israeli town of Shtula in the north that was claimed by Hezbollah on Sunday.

The Israeli military designated the region along the border with Lebanon as a "isolation zone" and said that no one would be let in.

And over the weekend, Syrian sources said that Israel had attacked the airport in Aleppo with airstrikes. Senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official Joshua Zarka said on the social media site X, previously known as Twitter, that Israel's overarching goal is to stop Iran from transporting weapons to or via Syria in order to build another front for Israel. He did not particularly address the airport's destruction, though.

The reasons for the Saturday delivery of a second American aircraft carrier and squadrons of assault aircraft to the eastern Mediterranean were made clear by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. According to him, the deployment was made "to prevent hostile actions against Israel or any attempts to escalate this conflict."

In the next days, the Dwight D. Eisenhower, the second carrier, is anticipated to join the Gerald R. Ford.

In order to provide Americans stranded in Gaza with a means of escape, the United States has also been attempting to mediate an agreement with Egypt to restore the Rafah border. According to a senior diplomat involved with the negotiations, Egypt has delayed relief convoys to Gaza because of differences with Israel about how and where the convoys should be inspected for weaponry. Until that issue is settled, Egypt has refused to let anyone—including foreigners—to leave Gaza, the ambassador said.