The United States government has warned that any Gaza ceasefire by Israel would benefit Hamas, as the European Union considers a call for a humanitarian pause.
A ceasefire would ‘give Hamas the ability to rest, to refit and to get ready to continue launching terrorist attacks against Israel,’ State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters on Tuesday morning.
‘You can understand perfectly clearly why that’s an intolerable situation for Israel, as it would be an intolerable situation for any country that has suffered such a brutal terrorist attack and continues to see the terrorist threat right on its border,’ he said.
Miller said that the United States was separately working to ensure a flow of humanitarian relief into Gaza, with a US envoy, David Satterfield, on the ground working ‘intensively’ on aid.
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EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said earlier Monday that he expected the bloc’s leaders to back a call for a pause in fighting to let in aid.
‘I believe that the idea of a humanitarian pause to facilitate the arrival of humanitarian aid, which would allow displaced persons to find shelter, is something that the leaders will support,’ Borrell said after talks with EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
In another report, 5,000 Palestinians have died in the beleaguered Palestinian territory of Gaza since Israel began its ferocious bombing assault more than two weeks ago, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.
Concerns about the escalating humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza have increased during the conflict precipitated by the October 7 Hamas attack, which Israeli officials claim resulted in the deaths of more than 1,400 people who were shot, stabbed, or burned by the Islamist militants. More least 200 hostages were also taken by Hamas.
On a day when Israel’s army reported more than 300 new strikes within 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said the death toll had surged above 5,000, around 40 per cent of them children.