U.S. President Joe Biden will make a high stakes visit to Israel on Wednesday to show support for its war on Hamas, after Washington said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to let humanitarian aid reach besieged Gazans.
Israel has vowed to annihilate the Hamas movement that controls Gaza after Hamas gunmen killed 1,300 people, mainly civilians, during a rampage through southern Israeli towns on Oct. 7, the deadliest single day in Israel's 75-year history.
Israel has bombarded the Gaza Strip with air strikes that have killed more than 2,800 Palestinians, a quarter of them children, and driven around half of the 2.3 million Gazans from their homes. It has imposed a total blockade on the enclave, halting food, fuel and medical supplies, which are rapidly running out.
Scores of trucks carrying vital supplies for Gaza headed towards the Rafah crossing in Egypt on Tuesday, the only access point to the enclave outside of Israel's control, but there was no clear indication that they would be able to enter.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Biden's planned visit at the end of hours of talks with Netanyahu, in which he said Netanyahu had agreed to develop a plan to get humanitarian aid to Gaza civilians. He gave no details.
Biden will "hear from Israel what it needs to defend its people," Blinken said, and also hear how Israel "will conduct its operations in a way that minimizes civilian casualties and enables humanitarian assistance to flow to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not benefit Hamas."
Washington is also trying to rally Arab states to help head off a wider regional war, after Iran pledged "preemptive action" from the "resistance front" of its allies which include the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.
After visiting Israel, Biden is expected to travel to Jordan to meet King Abdullah and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
He will also meet Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, which exerts limited self rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007.
The PA's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday accused Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and condemned the targeting of medical centers, hospitals, journalists and schools in air strikes.
