URGENT APPEALS FROM neighbouring countries in the Middle East and around the world have been made to Israel today to open humanitarian corridors to Gaza as supplies run short and Palestinians in the north face an evacuation order.

Israel is blocking all access in and out of Gaza in a siege that it has threatened not to end until Hamas releases its hostages.

No exception has been made for humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, where essential supplies like food, water, fuel and medicines are expected to run out in a matter of days, and although Palestinians in the north of Gaza have been told to leave, they have little capacity to do so.

Egypt, which has a border crossing with Gaza that Israel has closed, is in “full support” of UN agencies trying to deliver aid.

Diplomat Sameh Shoukry, who hosted talks with the United Nation’s agency for Palestinian refugees on Wednesday, warned of the “dangerous humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip”.

US officials are working with Egypt to make a plan for a safety corridor from Gaza.

Fellow neighbour Jordan, which shares a long border with Israel to the west, has called for “opening humanitarian corridors to allow for the entry of urgent medical and relief aid to Gaza, and protecting civilians and stopping the escalation and war on Gaza”.

Further afield, the President of Brazil — which currently holds the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council – Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has appealed to Israel to allow a humanitarian corridor to open between Gaza and Egypt so that Palestinians under evacuation orders can flee.

Lula wrote on social media: “I recently spoke on the phone with the President of Israel Isaac Herzog. I conveyed my call for a humanitarian corridor so that people who want to leave the Gaza Strip through Egypt can be safe.”

“I asked the President for all possible initiatives to ensure that there is no shortage of water, electricity and medicines in hospitals,” he said. 

Brazil has called a meeting of the UN Security Council today to address the spiralling conflict.

Additional reporting by AFP