World leaders have urged Israel to avoid carrying out a military operation in southern Gaza's Rafah that could have catastrophic consequences for over a million internally displace Palestinians.
Australia, Canada and New Zealand warned Israel "not to go down this path," issuing a rare joint statement in the latest urgent appeal seeking to avert further mass civilian casualties.
"An expanded military operation would be devastating," they said. "There is simply nowhere else for civilians to go."
Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have been driven into Gaza's southernmost city by Israel's relentless military campaign, seeking shelter in a sprawling makeshift encampment near the Egypt border.
Earlier Wednesday, Spain and Ireland asked the European Union to "urgently" examine whether Israel is complying with its human rights obligations in Gaza under an accord linking rights to trade ties.
The move reflects growing European frustration over the spiraling humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, for the first time evoking the prospect of economic sanctions, albeit obliquely.
In a letter, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar asked the European Commission to "act urgently," with Israel poised to launch a full-scale ground operation into Rafah.
"Given the critical situation in Rafah, Ireland and Spain have just requested the European Commission urgently review whether Israel is complying with its obligations to respect human rights in Gaza," Sanchez wrote on X.
However, despite pressure from foreign governments and aid agencies not to invade, Israel insists it must push into the area and eliminate the Hamas presence there.
"We will fight until complete victory and this includes a powerful action also in Rafah after we allow the civilian population to leave the battle zones," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Wednesday.
His threats of an imminent incursion come as mediators race for a truce in the four-month war, which has flattened vast swathes of Gaza, displaced most of the territory's population and pushed people to the brink of starvation.
Should the Israeli assault on Rafah go ahead, the risk of atrocities is "serious, real and high", the United Nations' special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, said Wednesday.
In Cairo, mediators from the United States, Qatar and Egypt are seeking to broker a deal that would suspend fighting and see the release of the roughly 130 captives still in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
"Israel did not receive in Cairo any new proposal of Hamas on the release of our hostages," Netanyahu's office said in a statement following Israeli media reports that the country's delegation was told not to rejoin negotiations until Hamas softens its stance.
While he did not comment directly on the reports, Netanyahu said: "I insist that Hamas drop their delusional demands, and when they drop these demands we can move forward."
On Tuesday, CIA director William Burns joined the talks with David Barnea, head of Israel's Mossad intelligence service, while a Hamas delegation was in Cairo Wednesday.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas, who governs the Israeli-occupied West Bank, called on Hamas to "rapidly" agree to a truce and stave off further tragedy for Palestinians.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation meanwhile revealed that its director, Christopher Wray, had made an unannounced trip to Israel to meet with the country's law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Wray also met with FBI agents based in Tel Aviv, according to a statement from the bureau.
While truce negotiations enter their third day, Israel's military has kept up its bombardment of Gaza.
On Thursday, the Gazan Health Ministry said 107 people, "mostly women and children," were killed in overnight attacks.
One person was killed and several wounded in shelling on Nasser Hospital's orthopedics department, it added.
Later Israeli forces stormed the medical facility, which has been the site of heavy fighting for weeks.
A military statement said special forces are operating inside the medical facility.
"This operation is based on intelligence information indicating the presence of Hamas activities inside the hospital," it claimed.
The army said a number of suspects have been detained at the hospital.
The Israeli army has laid a siege around the hospital and ordered the evacuation of the complex.
Doctors Without Borders has condemned the order to evacuate thousands of patients, staff and displaced people from the hospital.
The organization said its staff were continuing to treat patients there "amid near impossible conditions."
Nurse Mohammed al-Astal told AFP the facility had been "besieged" for a month, with no food or drinking water left.
"At night, tanks opened heavy fire on the hospital and snipers on the roofs of buildings surrounding Nasser Hospital opened fire and killed three displaced people," he said.
The World Health Organization has said it was denied access to the hospital and lost contact with its staff there, while its Palestine representative said most of the organization's mission requests have been denied since January.
