United States officials have met Israeli leaders to discuss the situation in the embattled city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed on Thursday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to launch an Israeli ground assault against Rafah, which is now packed with hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who fled Israeli attacks elsewhere in the Gaza Strip.
The US, Germany and other Israeli allies have been urging restraint instead and warning against the fallout from a direct attack on the city, which is located on the border with Egypt.
Kirby declined to comment on the precise content of the talks or identify the participants, saying he would provide details once the meetings are over.
"The main purpose is really to talk about Rafah ... and also share our continued concerns over a major ground offensive there," Kirby told reporters in Washington.
A meeting with an Israeli delegation had been planned this week to discuss the concerns of the US side.
Prior to the major Iranian air attack on Israel over the weekend, Netanyahu had announced last week that the assault on Rafah had already been scheduled.
However, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant contradicted Netanyahu's remarks shortly afterwards.
Israel has been at war in the Gaza Strip since October 7, when the Palestinian militant group Hamas led unprecedented deadly attacks on Israel that included brutal massacres of civilians and left more than 1,200 dead.
More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip over the past six months, according to the health ministry there, which is controlled by Hamas.
According to the World Food Programme (WFP), lorries carrying relief supplies for the population in the north of the Gaza Strip have passed through the Erez border crossing, newly opened by Israel, for the first time since the start of the war.
Three convoys carrying food for around 80,000 people used the crossing on Sunday and Monday, the organization announced on Thursday. In total, 25 lorries carrying 404 tons of food had passed through, it said.
There was initially no confirmation from Israel that the border crossing was being used, although Israel had announced its opening at the beginning of April.
The use of the border crossing between Israel and the north of the sealed-off coastal area is intended to make it easier to supply the civilian population there, which is particularly affected by hunger.
In view of the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, the United States recently called on its ally Israel to rapidly expand aid supplies for the civilian population. At the beginning of April, the Israeli war Cabinet decided to open the Erez border crossing.
Erez had been used for the movement of people between Israel and the Gaza Strip before the war began.
According to army sources, Israel also brought aid supplies to the north of the Gaza Strip via another border crossing a week ago for the first time since the start of the war.
On Wednesday, aid deliveries of flour provided by the WFP for the coastal area were also channelled through the port of Ashdod in southern Israel for the first time.
"The small rays of hope in access to Gaza through the opening of Erez and the port of Ashdod give us hope," said Martin Frick, head of the WFP's Berlin office. However, these are just steps when "quantum leaps" are needed to rapidly expand aid.
"At the moment, there are still too few lorries coming in, there are still long waiting times at the checkpoints and the ongoing fighting does not allow aid to be distributed safely throughout the country," Frick continued.