US In Last-Ditch Effort To Reduce Impact Of Israeli Assault On Gaza

Blinken in second round of talks as Iran says all hands are on the trigger’

- Patrick Wintour Ruth Michaelson and Bethan McKernan Jerusalem

A last-ditch attempt to deter, or reduce the impact of, an all-out Israeli land assault on Gaza will be made today by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, amid fears that the already daunting Palestinian death toll will rise and provoke an intervention by Iran or its proxies.

Blinken will return to Jerusalem for a second round of talks with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, ending a round of shuttle diplomacy designed to stop the conflict spreading. In a sign of tensions in the region, Iran's foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, warned yesterday: "If the Zionist aggressions do not stop, the hands of all parties in the region are on the trigger." A second US aircraft carrier group has been deployed to the Mediterranean for what was described by the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, as deterring "hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war".

Blinken has been working on a plan for safe spaces for Palestinian civilians inside Gaza and on its borders and, in the first sign 4 that Israel might listen to private US entreaties, Israeli officials said it was restoring water supplies to southern Gaza after a call between Biden and Netanyahu.

After a meeting with Egypt's president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Blinken said the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza would reopen to allow aid in and the evacuation of some foreign passport holders. Few diplomats, however, expect Israel to abandon an incursion designed to "demolish Hamas" after its assault on Israel left at least 1,300 dead and 126 held hostage, including children.

More than 600,000 people have so far moved to the southern part of the territory near the Egyptian border city of el-Arish. Aid workers in Gaza described an unprecedented situation of "humanitarian collapse".