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Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Monday his government had not reached a cease-fire agreement in the fight against Hamas to let aid in to Gaza and allow civilians to leave. "There is currently no cease-fire," Netanyahu's office said as he faced pressure from the United States to allow humanitarian aid to come into Gaza as water and other supplies started to run out.
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Meanwhile, Israel Defense Forces said it had launched an attack on dozens of Hamas' operational headquarters and that mortar bomb launching positions had been destroyed.
The Rafah crossing, the only viable passage for people to get out of Gaza, has remained closed, leaving humanitarian aid to pile up unused in Egypt.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who arrived in Israel for more discussions Monday, said Sunday that the Rafah border crossing would be reopened amid anticipation of an Israeli ground invasion of the Palestinian enclave where fears of a catastrophic humanitarian crisis grow.
"Rafah will be reopened," he said, without providing further details. "We're putting in place with the United Nations, with Egypt, with Israel, with others, a mechanism by which to get the assistance in and to get it to people who need it."
Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on Monday blamed Israel for the delay in opening the border crossing.
"The Israeli government has not yet taken a position that would allow the crossing to be opened from the Gaza side, allowing the entry of aid or the exit of citizens from third countries," Shoukry said.
The border crossing has been closed for much of the week since Oct. 7, when Hamas carried out a surprise attack on Israel.
Hamas killed more than 1,300 Israelis and took more than 120 hostages in the attack. Israel has responded with incessant bombing of Gaza, killing more than 2,670 people and wounding 9,600 others.
Early Friday, Israel's military ordered some 1.1 million Palestinians in northern Gaza to move south of the Wadi Gaza amid a military buildup at the enclave's perimeter and expectations of a ground invasion.
As Palestinians have fled south, aid, including medical supplies, has been blocked from moving north at the Rafah border crossing, with the World Health Organization warning Saturday that "every hour these supplies remain on the Egyptian side of the border, more girls and boys, women and men, especially those vulnerable or disabled, will die."
The WHO has said that while the Egyptian side of the crossing remains accessible, the Israeli side is closed, and the United Nations has called for unimpeded access for humanitarian supplies.
U.S. President Joe Biden earlier Sunday appointed Ambassador David Satterfield as the U.S. special envoy for Middle Eastern Humanitarian Issues.
In a statement, the president said Satterfield will be tasked with efforts to "bring urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people in Gaza, in coordination with the U.N., Egypt, Jordan, Israel and other regional stakeholders."
Blinken said Satterfield will be "on the ground tomorrow to work out all the practical details so we can move this forward."
"We are now very actively engaged with countries in the region, with the United Nations, with Israel, to make sure, to the best of our ability, that people can get out of harm's way and that the assistance they need -- the food, water, medicine -- can get in," he said.
The World Food Program has said more than 100 metric tons of food has been sent to Rafah and "the minute humanitarian access is secured, our teams will deliver this emergency assistance to families."
Electricity, water and fuel had been cut in Gaza, but Israel's Energy Minister Israel Katz has since announced that water to the south of the Gaza Strip will resume as a result of conversations between Netanyahu and Biden.
Despite the resumption of water, in normal times, the south side of Gaza has fewer resources, officials said.
