A top United Nations official has accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes as pressure grows for humanitarian truces to get aid through to hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in Gaza.
The international pressure was expected to redouble at a conference on Thursday in Paris called by French President Emmanuel Macron to boost aid for the Palestinians - although Israel is absent from the meeting and the United States has sent only low-level representation.
Cyprus proposed a humanitarian sea corridor from the port of Limassol to Gaza, which is cut off by Israel.
But the UN and aid groups say a ceasefire is essential to get aid through.
“If the parties involved in this conference only discuss technical details such as the number of trucks to be driven through, it will amount to a cosmetic discussion that will delay the real issue, the ceasefire,” said Michel Lacharité, head of emergency operations at Doctors without Borders France.
On the ground in northern Gaza, the Israeli military said its soldiers had taken over a Hamas outpost in Jabalia after 10 hours of fighting, “during which they eliminated terrorists, captured many weapons, uncovered terrorist tunnel shafts, including a shaft located near a kindergarten and leading to an extensive underground route”.
The plight of Palestinians including children in UN camps and orphanages was also in focus as Israel pursues an offensive against Hamas following the terror group’s massacre of civilians inside Israel a month ago.
Israeli planes bombed and destroyed a house in the Jabalia refugee camp with people trapped under rubble, according to an unverified report from the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk was damning of both sides in the conflict as he briefed reporters at the Rafah border crossing in Egypt. “These are the gates to a living nightmare,” he said.
“The atrocities perpetrated by Palestinian armed groups on 7 October were heinous, they were war crimes - as is the continued holding of hostages,” he added.
“The collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians is also a war crime, as is unlawful forcible evacuation of civilians.” Mr Turk said later in Cairo: “We have fallen off a precipice. This cannot continue.”
Hamas terrorists killed 1,400 people in Israel and took some 240 others hostage into Gaza.
The Israeli offensive since has left more than 10,500 people dead including more than 4,300 children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The UN rights office has received reports about one orphanage in northern Gaza with 300 children who need urgent help, but it said communications were down and access was too dangerous.
“I feel, in my innermost being, the pain, the immense suffering of every person whose loved one has been killed in a kibbutz, in a Palestinian refugee camp, hiding in a building or as they were fleeing,” Mr Turk said. “We all must feel this shared pain — and end this nightmare.”
G7 nations including Britain this week backed Israel’s right to defend itself within international law but President Joe Biden’s US administration has toughened its rhetoric towards its Israeli allies, warning against any occupation of Gaza after the conflict following years of expansion by Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly was in Saudi Arabia as diplomatic efforts continue to prevent the Middle East crisis spiralling into a wider war.
“I have been focused on diplomatic efforts to secure the release of hostages, to ensure that foreign nationals can leave Gaza, to deter any escalation regionally and to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid at scale,” he said ahead of talks in Riyadh on Thursday.
