Joe Biden said on Friday that a “temporary ceasefire” was needed in the Gaza Strip “to get the hostages out,” adding that he “still hopes it will happen,” AFP reported.

“I hope that in the meantime the Israelis will not continue with a massive ground invasion,” added the US president, who was asked about a possible military offensive on Rafah, on the border with Egypt.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday night promised a “strong” operation in Rafah “after” civilians are allowed to leave the southern Gaza town.

“We will fight until we achieve total victory, which means a powerful operation in Rafah after allowing civilians to leave the war zones,” he said in a message in Hebrew on his official Telegram account.

According to the UN, some 1.4 million people, mostly displaced by the war, are in the city, which has been turned into a giant camp and the only major urban center in the territory where the army has not yet launched an assault.

However, on the night of Sunday to Monday, the Israeli army conducted an operation to free two Israeli hostages, resulting in “about a hundred deaths” on the Palestinian side.

“This week we freed two of our hostages in a thorough military operation. To date, we have released 112 of our hostages through a combination of strong military pressure and firm negotiations,” Netanyahu added in a video late Wednesday.

The Israeli military operation in Rafah “could lead to a massacre in Gaza,” UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned on Tuesday, according to AFP.

“I sound the alarm once again: military action in Rafah could lead to a massacre in Gaza. They can also lead to the death of already fragile humanitarian operations,” he said.

The UN will not associate itself with the “forced evacuation” of the population from Rafah, the secretary-general’s spokesman warned on Monday, reiterating that there is “no safe place” in the Gaza Strip to move the population.

The United States remains opposed to Israel’s large-scale military operation in Rafah in the absence of measures to protect civilians in the Palestinian city on the border with Egypt, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday.

“Without a credible plan for this that they (Israel) are able to implement, we do not support a large-scale military operation” in Rafah, he told reporters.