Israel announced Tuesday the expansion of its war against Hamas to include the goal of making it possible for residents of northern Israel to return to homes they evacuated due to clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants along the Israel-Lebanon border.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the security cabinet approved the move late Monday.

Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, began its near-daily attacks shortly after the war in Gaza began, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes. Hezbollah, which like Hamas is supported by Iran, has said it would halt the attacks if there is a cease-fire deal for Gaza.

Efforts to achieve that cease-fire have stretched on for months, with U.S., Egyptian and Qatari officials trying to find terms agreeable to both Israel and Hamas.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken travels to Egypt on Tuesday amid ongoing efforts to engage key regional partners in the Middle East to present a revised cease-fire proposal.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters Monday, “We continue to engage with our partners in the region, most specifically with Egypt and Qatar, about what that proposal will contain, and making sure or trying to see that it's a proposal that can get the parties to an ultimate agreement.”

The U.S. has not provided a timetable for the revised proposal, though officials have indicated that it would be presented soon. The proposal seeks to resolve key issues behind the impasse, aiming to secure a truce between Israel and Hamas and the release of remaining hostages taken by the Hamas militants at the start of the war on October 7, 2023.

In Cairo, Blinken will co-chair the opening session of the U.S.-Egypt Strategic Dialogue with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty. Blinken will also meet with Egyptian leaders to discuss efforts to secure a cease-fire in Gaza, ensure the release of all hostages, alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people, and promote broader regional security, according to Miller.

However, Blinken's trip does not include a stop in Israel for talks with its leaders.

Blinken met Monday with Yair Lapid, Israel’s opposition leader and former prime minister.

| Israel's opposition leader and former prime minister Yair Lapid delivers a statement to the press following his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the State Department in Washington, Sept. 16, 2024

After the meeting at the State Department, Lapid told reporters that Israel needs a hostage deal and an end to the war in Gaza, emphasizing that no political process or turbulence should affect the deal. Lapid urged the U.S. not to let Hamas “skirt a hostage deal.”

“Israel as a nation will not heal unless we will bring [the remaining hostages] back home. This is essential to our existence,” Lapid said.

Humanitarian efforts

At the United Nations Security Council, Sigrid Kaag, the U.N. senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, gave a bleak briefing on the situation of Palestinian civilians.

“Time is slipping away as a man-made humanitarian crisis has turned Gaza into the abyss,” she said. “It cannot be repeated enough: we need an immediate cease-fire, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, and unimpeded, continuous humanitarian access to deliver aid at scale throughout the Gaza Strip.”

| Trucks carrying aid line up near the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah, Egypt, Sept. 9, 2024

She said relief operations are hampered by hostilities, lawlessness, and denials and delays by the Israeli authorities.

Data from the U.N. office of humanitarian affairs shows that the number of aid trucks getting into Gaza each day has steadily decreased from a high in April of 169 trucks a day. That has dropped to 69 trucks a day in August, and only 62 a day during the first nine days of September.

Israel denies that it impedes aid deliveries.

“We have gone above and beyond our obligations, aiming to improve the well-being of a civilian population embedded within the enemy,” Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said.

Hamas triggered the conflict with its October 2023 attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of 250 hostages. Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 41,200 Palestinians, a death toll Israel says includes several thousand militant fighters.

Hamas has been designated a terror group by the U.S., the U.K., EU and other Western nations.

VOA State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching, U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer, Kim Lewis and Natasha Mozgovaya contributed to this report.