Joe Biden has again spoken with Benjamin Netanyahu and reiterated his “clear position” opposing Israeli plans to assault Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah as pressure rises on Israel and Hamas to negotiate a ceasefire accord.

The US president also urged to the Israeli prime minister that progress in the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza should be “enhanced”, the White House said on Sunday.

The leaders’ call occurred ahead of the US secretary of state arriving in Saudi Arabia on Monday to try to revive the truce and hostage-release discussions and discuss efforts to prevent a growing regional crisis. Antony Blinken will later carry on to Jordan and Israel on his latest tour to the area after Hamas’s 7 October strikes on Israel.

Hamas, meanwhile, claimed it has no “major issues” after reading Israel’s new truce proposal, a senior Hamas official told Agence France-Presse. “The atmosphere is positive unless there are new Israeli obstacles.” A delegation from the Islamist group is set to arrive in Cairo on Monday to provide the group’s reaction.

The Palestinian president warned that only the US could stop Israel assaulting Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians are sheltering. Speaking on Sunday at the World Economic Forum gathering in the Saudi capital, Mahmoud Abbas said he expected an assault on the Gaza city in the coming days.

He said that simply a “small strike” on Rafah would compel the Palestinian population to abandon Gaza, warning: “The biggest catastrophe in the Palestinian people’s history would then happen.”

A senior official from key middleman Qatar urged Israel and Hamas to show “more commitment and more seriousness” in the ceasefire discussions.

Israeli airstrikes on three residences in Rafah killed 13 people and wounded many others, medics said on Monday. Hamas media sites estimated the death toll at 15. In Gaza City, in the strip’s north, Israeli planes attacked two residences, killing and wounded numerous people, health authorities said.

At least 34,454 Palestinian individuals have been killed and 77,575 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry reported. An estimated 66 people were killed and 138 injured over the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run government stated on Sunday.

World Central Kitchen announced it was resuming its activities in Gaza, while continuing to mourn its seven workers killed in an Israeli military raid. The food relief charity suspended its operations in the region after the 1 April strikes, which the military labeled a “grave mistake”.

The US military says it engaged five unmanned drones over the Red Sea which “presented an imminent threat to US, coalition and merchant vessels in the region”. US central command did not indicate in its Sunday statement if the drones were destroyed.

France’s foreign minister said Paris has been putting forward recommendations to “avoid war in Lebanon”. “I will head to Beirut to meet political authorities to … make proposals,” Stéphane Séjourné said during a visit to the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon (Unifil) headquarters.