Middle East crisis live: ‘We are on the edge of regional war in the Middle East’, says EU foreign policy chief

Nandy is in Washington this week attending the spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund with a message of how the UK’s humanitarian and development policy will change if Labour, as expected, forms the next government by the end of this year.

However, she accepted that she would have to address widespread perceptions across the global south of Britain’s unreliability as a partner and its double standards on the world stage, an image exacerbated by the war in Gaza and the consequent famine rolling over the Palestinian coastal strip.

Israel has reportedly deployed extra artillery and armoured personnel carriers to the Gaza Strip periphery, suggesting that the military is preparing for its long-threatened ground offensive on Rafah, the only place of relative safety for at least 1.4 million displaced Palestinian civilians.

Israeli daily Ma’ariv also said on Wednesday that troops had been put on alert and “the governing principle of the operation” had been approved by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) general staff and Yoav Gallant, the defence minister.

The IDF confirmed on Tuesday it was buying 40,000 tents to prepare for the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians who have sought shelter in Rafah, the southernmost town in the Gaza Strip, which is only major urban area in the territory that Israeli ground forces have not yet entered.

Israel has reportedly deployed extra artillery and armoured personnel carriers to the Gaza Strip periphery, suggesting that the military is preparing for its long-threatened ground offensive on Rafah, the only place of relative safety for at least 1.4 million displaced Palestinian civilians.