The war between Israel and Hamas: Diplomats race to ease the Gaza crisis amid fears the conflict will spread

António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, expressed these concerns on Sunday, saying: “We are on the brink of the abyss in the Middle East.”

Officials from the United States, Egypt and Middle Eastern countries have sought to ease what Israeli officials have called the “siege” of Gaza, which has led to severe shortages of food, water, gasoline and other necessities in the besieged area.

Video images on Sunday showed rows of trucks parked on the road leading to Gaza in the Egyptian city of Al-Arish, about 30 miles from the border, which they were not allowed to cross.

After days of severe water shortages in Gaza, Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said on Sunday that Israel had agreed to return water to a pipeline serving the southern part of the Strip.

As Israeli forces massed on the border, more than two million Gazans endured a panicked countdown to the expected start of the ground invasion of northern Gaza.

“We will dismantle Hamas,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet ministers on Sunday at the first official meeting of Israel’s new wartime emergency government, according to a statement from his office. Israel, a wounded country prepared for war and torn between anxiety and anger, called up 360,000 military reserve soldiers for duty.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s Finance Minister, admitted in a speech Sunday evening that Israel’s leaders had failed to maintain the country’s security.

“We have to say honestly, painfully, with our heads bowed: We have failed,” Smotrich said, referring to the Hamas attacks that took place eight days ago and led to the worst massacres against Israelis since the founding of the state 75 years ago. “We were unable to fulfill the most important unwritten contract between the state and its citizens.”

The Israeli army also announced what it called the “road to safety” along the streets of northern Gaza. The military said it would not carry out attacks along the road for several hours in the late morning and early afternoon on Sunday.

“During this window, please seize the opportunity to move south from northern Gaza,” the army said. This was the third day that Israel encouraged a mass exodus from northern Gaza. On Saturday, the streets were littered with leaflets asking residents to leave.

United Nations estimates indicate that nearly one million Gazans have been displaced. But some in the northern parts of the Strip say moving will be impossible. At Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip, an influx of wounded began on Sunday. Hospital director Dr. Muhammad Abu Salima said that transporting patients would be logistically impossible and medically dangerous.

The Israeli bombing of Gaza continued around the clock in full swing. The Israeli Air Force dropped more than 6,000 bombs across Gaza during the first week of fighting, with most of the strikes in the north.

The military said the intended targets were operational command centers, military complexes, anti-tank missile launch sites and “observation posts,” although many of the targets were in densely populated urban areas. Israel says Hamas members live among civil society and are hiding in homes, schools and hospitals.

An Israeli fighter jet also fired a missile that the Israeli military claimed killed Bilal al-Qudra, whom Israel describes as the Hamas leader responsible for the massacre that took place in Israeli Kibbutz Nirim on October 7.

Israeli retaliatory attacks killed at least 2,670 people in Gaza over the past week, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Palestinian media reported on Sunday that an Israeli raid on a house in Rafah, near the closed border crossing with Egypt, killed at least 17 members of one family.

Israeli officials said over the weekend that among the 1,300 people killed in Israel by Hamas activists during the October 7 raid, at least 258 were Israeli soldiers. Israeli hospitals reported on Sunday that 377 people were still receiving treatment for injuries sustained in Hamas attacks.

Amid the mounting death toll, the geopolitics swirled around the conflict. Israeli operations in Gaza were criticized by neighboring Egypt and China.

Both countries used similar language in their criticism. Ahead of his meeting on Sunday with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said that the Israeli attack on Gaza exceeded the “right to self-defense” and turned into “collective punishment.” “, according to the Associated Press.

The meeting between Blinken and Sisi became personal when the president criticized the minister for saying last week that, as a Jew, he was deeply affected by Hamas attacks. Mr. Blinken responded by saying: “I come as a human being who is horrified by the atrocities committed by Hamas.”

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Saudi counterpart, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, that “Israel’s actions have already gone beyond self-defense,” according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

The ministry quoted Mr. Wang as saying that Israel “must listen in good conscience to the calls of the international community and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and stop the collective punishment of the people of Gaza.”

These statements stand in stark contrast to some voices in the US Congress, especially among Republicans, who have claimed that Israel should be able to pursue Hamas without any measure of restraint.

Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, said on “Fox News Sunday” that “anything that happens in Gaza is the responsibility of Hamas.”

However, fears of a wider conflict were exacerbated over the weekend by an exchange of artillery fire between the Israeli army and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah claimed responsibility on Sunday for the attack on the Shtula settlement in northern Israel that killed at least one Israeli and wounded three others.

The Israeli army declared the area adjacent to the Lebanese border an “isolation zone” and said that no one would be allowed to enter it.

In Syria, officials over the weekend accused Israel of launching air strikes on Aleppo airport. On the social media platform Other. For Israel.

US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd J. Austin III, was clear on the reasons for sending a second US aircraft carrier and attack aircraft squadrons to the eastern Mediterranean on Saturday. He said the publication aims to “deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts aimed at expanding this war.”

The second carrier, the Dwight D. Eisenhower, is expected to arrive in the next few days, joining the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford.

The United States is also trying to broker an agreement with Egypt to reopen the Rafah crossing to allow Americans trapped in Gaza safe passage. Egypt has blocked aid convoys to Gaza due to disagreements with Israel over how and where to screen convoys for weapons, according to a senior diplomat familiar with the discussions. The diplomat added that Egypt refused to allow even foreigners to leave Gaza until this problem was resolved.

He contributed to the preparation of the reports Anna Bates, Emma Popoola, Karon Demirjian, Patrick Kingsley, Farah Mohammed, Zach Montagu, Vivian Nerem, Eric Schmidt, Ewan Ward And Edward Wong.