GAZA: The Israeli military on Monday struck the area of Rafah border crossing with Egypt, where thousands of Palestinians hoping to cross to safety have been gathering for the past several days.

Cairo said the Rafah crossing is not officially closed, but was made inoperable due to Israeli air strikes on the Gaza side.

“There is an urgent need to alleviate the suffering of Pal­estinian civilians in Gaza,” Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told reporters, adding that talks with Israel had not been fruitful.

Israel has been bombing Gaza for 10 days now, flatt­ening neighbourhoods and killing at least 2,750 Palesti­nians, and has ordered half the enclave’s population to leave north Gaza in anticipation of a ground offensive.

But despite issuing the order to evacuate, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out the possibility of a temporary ceasefire to allow aid supplies in or get foreigners out of the bombardment zone.

In addition, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has warned of a long war with a high price.

Time is running out to save millions of people in the besieged Gaza Strip as water supplies have dried up and food and fuel stocks are dwindling, aid agencies said on Monday.

“There are 24 hours of water, electricity and fuel left” in Gaza, WHO regional director Ahmed Al-Mandhari told AFP in an interview in Cairo. If aid is not allowed in, doctors will have to “prepare death certificates for their patients”, he said in a stark warning.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned that the entire Middle East region was “on the verge of the abyss”, as Israel faces a potential second front on its northern border with Lebanon.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has been shuttling between Middle Eastern capitals in recent days, returned to Israel on Monday after talks in six Arab states, hoping to find ways to alleviate Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.

The trip comes as President Joe Biden, who abruptly called off a trip to Colorado on Monday, is said to be weighing an invitation to visit Israel to show solidarity with Washington’s primary ally in the Middle East.

The Biden administration has warned against more extreme measures, such as mass expulsion of Palestinians, a prospect feared by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

In an interview with CBS News, President Biden offered rare criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza, saying that any bid by Tel Aviv to re-occupy the enclave would be “a mistake”.

The White House has stopped short of calling for a ceasefire, but in remarks made in Cairo, Blinken also said: “Civilians should not have to suffer for Hamas’s atrocities”.