As Israel continues to indicate plans to launch a ground offensive into Rafah, aid organizations warn that an invasion would be a "bloodbath" for civilians and deepen the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

Some 1.4 million Palestinians are believed to be in Rafah, the southern city of Gaza bordering Egypt. More than 1 million Palestinians have fled there to seek shelter during the Israel-Hamas war, according to the United Nations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that a victory against Hamas is "impossible" without the Israel Defense Forces entering Rafah to eliminate the rest of the terrorist group's battalions.

Netanyahu said he has approved the IDF's plan to evacuate the civilian population from the "battle zones," though it's not clear when or how that would occur. The IDF has said they plan to push civilians toward "humanitarian islands" in the center of the Gaza Strip in advance of an offensive in Rafah.

The U.S. has said it opposes a major operation in Rafah, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying during his Middle East trip last week that it would be a "mistake" and "something we can't support."

"A major ground operation there would mean more civilian deaths. It would worsen the humanitarian crisis," Blinken said during a press conference in Egypt on Thursday. "There is a better way to deal with the threat, the ongoing threat posed by Hamas."

Blinken has described this week's planned meetings in Washington between the U.S. as a chance to persuade Israeli officials to take "alternative actions" in Rafah, which an administration official said would consist of more targeted, high-value counterterrorism missions to eliminate Hamas.

Humanitarian groups working in Gaza have also continued to speak out against an incursion in Rafah.

"A military operation in Rafah would be an absolute bloodbath with consequences more devastating than we can imagine," Deepmala Mahla, the chief humanitarian officer for CARE, an international humanitarian organization that targets global poverty and hunger, told ABC News.

With about two-thirds of the entire population in the Gaza Strip sheltering in Rafah, an offensive would result in a "terrible loss of life," Mahla said.

"We are basically talking somewhere around 1.5 million people in Rafah -- there is no safe way to evacuate them," she said.

The city's population includes some 600,000 children, according to UNICEF.

"This is a city of children," UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told ABC News. "A military offensive here would be absolutely catastrophic for children. It cannot be allowed to occur."

Even if civilians were able to evacuate out of Rafah, there is "no safe place" for them to go in Gaza, Mahla said.

Bob Kitchen, the vice president for emergencies for the International Rescue Committee, an organization that aids people affected by humanitarian crises, said the risk of loss of life in a Rafah invasion is "very significant."

"We're incredibly fearful of the humanitarian impact and also just the loss of life should a ground offensive happen," he told ABC News.

The IDF has pushed the population south in the Gaza Strip as the frontline has moved, with a "huge concentration" in Rafah against the Egyptian border, "which is firmly closed," he said.

"There's nowhere else for them to run," Kitchen said.

Israel has designated a safe zone in Al Mawasi, on the southern coast of the Gaza Strip, though that has been "bombed indiscriminately," Kitchen said.

"There's no safe place," he said. "If the offensive moved forward, it will be catastrophically serious."

With most humanitarian organizations in Gaza working out of Rafah, Mahla said, an incursion there would also bring aid operations in the territory "to a standstill" for a population facing hunger and disease.

"The life-saving work will not happen," she said. "We will not be able to alleviate suffering and save people."

Mahla said CARE has been delivering necessities like drinking water, hygiene kits and first aid kits under already challenging circumstances, and that it has been difficult to reach northern Gaza with aid amid the war.

Last week, a report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative found that the entire population of the Gaza Strip, about 2.23 million people, is facing high levels of food insecurity and, in the most likely scenario, an estimated 1.1 million people -- half of the population -- will be experiencing famine levels of hunger by mid-July.

"The speed at which health and hunger have deteriorated I've not seen before," Kitchen said. "I've not seen a population go from being basically food secure to facing now famine in the space of five months."

Israeli officials have said Hamas steals aid once it enters Gaza and claim looting is also a problem. Israel continues to deny all accusations that it isn't letting enough aid into Gaza and encourages other countries to send in aid, with Israeli officials saying the U.N., its partners and other aid agencies have created logistical challenges, resulting in a bottleneck. The U.N. disputes these claims.

Access to the Gaza Strip became increasingly limited following Hamas' surprise terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. More than 1,200 people have been killed in Israel since then, according to the Israeli Prime Minister's Office. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 74,000 injured over the same period, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

Many humanitarian aid organizations, including CARE, the International Rescue Committee and UNICEF, have called for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza to spare civilian lives and allow for unimpeded humanitarian access.

"The population is just growing more and more vulnerable," Kitchen said. "A cease-fire is the first thing that's absolutely needed immediately. And then we also need to just see a change of how aid is allowed in."

A U.S.-sponsored resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza tied to a release of hostages held by Hamas failed Friday in the United Nations Security Council, with Russia, China and Algeria voting against it.

The U.S. resolution draft emphasized concern that a ground offensive into Rafah "would result in further harm to civilians and their further displacement including potentially into neighboring countries."

The representatives from Russia and China both argued that they saw the resolution as overly supportive of Israel, while Algeria's representative said the draft resolution failed to adequately address the suffering of the Palestinian people. The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., meanwhile claimed that Russia and China could not bring themselves to condemn Hamas for the Oct. 7 attack in Israel.

A day after the resolution failed, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire and said it is time to "truly flood Gaza with lifesaving aid" during a press address on the Egyptian side of the border, not far from Rafah.

"Here from this crossing, we see the heartbreak and heartlessness of it all. A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates. The long shadow of starvation on the other," he said Saturday.

"Any further onslaught will make everything worse. Worse for Palestinian civilians. Worse for hostages. And worse for all people of the region," he added.

White House will share alternatives to ground operation in Rafah with Israelis

The White House on Friday said it would share with Israeli officials alternatives for eliminating the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza without a ground offensive in Rafah that Washington says would be a "disaster."

White House spokesperson John Kirby made the comment ahead of talks expected some time next week in Washington between senior U.S. officials and a visiting Israeli delegation.

U.S. officials were expected to focus on urging Israel to avoid launching a ground offensive in Rafah in southern Gaza, where 1.5 million people have sought refuge in more than five months of fighting after Hamas militants' Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.

"We believe a major ground offensive is a mistake" and would be a "disaster," Kirby told a briefing.

Kirby said U.S. officials would share possible options with Israeli officials when they visit Washington, and said more details on the visit would be released in coming days.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled on Friday that he would not be dissuaded from attempting to rout Hamas militants from Rafah, saying Israel was prepared to act alone.

Kirby noted that despite Netanyahu's comment, Israel had yet to launch its offensive in Rafah.

The United States and other nations have struggled to funnel large quantities of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and there are fears of famine there.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said there was no way for civilians to escape Rafah.

"There is nowhere for these people to go and be safe,” Harris told reporters as she departed for a trip to Puerto Rico and Florida.

UN chief to visit Gaza border as Israel vows to go ahead with Rafah attack

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected to visit Egypt's border with Gaza on Saturday, after Israel said it would send in troops to fight Hamas in the nearby city of Rafah, even without US support.

During his visit, Guterres plans to reiterate his call for a humanitarian ceasefire, though renewed international pressure has so far failed to dissuade Israel from the planned ground offensive in Rafah, where most of Gaza's population has taken shelter.

Despite warnings that such an invasion would cause mass civilian casualties and worsen the humanitarian crisis gripping the territory, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he must press ahead with the attack.

"I hope to do that with the support of the United States, but if we need to, we will do it alone," Netanyahu told visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday.

International efforts to pause the almost six months of fighting have grown increasingly desperate, with the Hamas-run health ministry reporting 32,070 people killed in Gaza as of Friday and experts warning the entire population is teetering on the brink of famine.

The ministry reported early Saturday morning another 67 people killed overnight, including 10 in a strike on a family home north of Gaza City.

"This is a man-made catastrophe," the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) Philippe Lazzarini wrote on social media platform X. He added that a ceasefire and "flooding Gaza with food + lifesaving goods" was the only solution.

The latest bid for a Security Council resolution on an "immediate" ceasefire failed on Friday as China and Russia vetoed the American proposal, which Arab governments complained was too weak.

Diplomatic sources said that a vote on a new ceasefire text, initially planned for Saturday, would be postponed until Monday to allow for further discussions.

Meanwhile, the violence has continued, particularly around Gaza's largest hospital complex, Al-Shifa, where Israeli forces claimed on Friday to have killed more than 150 Palestinian fighters and arrested hundreds of suspects.

At a funeral for the Barbakh family in the southern city Khan Yuins on Friday, relatives described seemingly endless losses.

"Every day we lament over a loved one," Turkiya Barbakh said. "At the beginning of the war I lost my nephew, and now my sister, her husband and her children. Almost the entire family has perished."

"How long are we supposed to endure this?"

- 'Defeat of Hamas' -

On Saturday, UN chief Guterres plans to meet with aid workers on the Egyptian side of Rafah, just across the border from the Gazan city where 1.5 million Palestinians have taken refuge.

The city had been the subject of a disagreement between Netanyahu and Blinken in Tel Aviv on Friday.

"We have no way to defeat Hamas without getting into Rafah and eliminating the battalions that are left there," Netanyahu said.

Afterward, Blinken said an invasion of Rafah was "not the way to achieve" that aim.

"We have the same goals as Israel: the defeat of Hamas," the top American diplomat wrote on X after the meeting. "Next week I will meet again with Israeli officials in Washington to discuss a different way we can achieve this objective."

In a reflection of the increasing strain between the Biden and Netanyahu administrations, Israel announced the seizure of 800 hectares (1,980 acres) of land in the occupied West Bank on the same day as Blinken's visit.

Successive Israeli governments have sharply accelerated the expansion of settlements across the West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem, which are regarded as illegal under international law.

Peace Now said the land seizure announced on Friday was the biggest since the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords in the 1990s.

"You know our views on settlement expansion," Blinken said. "Anyone taking steps that make things more difficult, more challenging with time is something we have a problem with."

Blinken, on a whistlestop tour of the region to support truce talks in Qatar, also expressed disappointment Friday over the failed UN resolution.

He accused China and Russia of "cynically" using their vetoes as permanent members of the council, while Hamas expressed its "appreciation".

While diplomats sparred in New York, Israel's spy chief David Barnea headed to Qatar for truce negotiations with CIA chief William Burns and Qatari and Egyptian officials.

The mediators are aiming to secure the release of Israelis still held by Gaza militants in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody and the delivery of more relief supplies.

- 'Starvation as method of war' -

Hamas's October 7 attack resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized about 250 hostages, of whom Israel believes around 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 presumed dead.

Since the start of its retaliatory campaign, Israel has imposed a near-complete blockade on Gaza, heavily restricting the flow of humanitarian aid, which mainly comes in from Egypt via Rafah.

According to the UN, these tight controls have reduced aid deliveries to barely a trickle.

"Before October 7, an average of 500 to 700 trucks entered Gaza every day. Today, the average is barely 150," UNRWA chief Lazzarini said.

Dire warnings of famine are issued almost daily, and UN rights chief Volker Turk earlier this week accused Israel of conducting the conflict in a way that "may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war".

Israel rejected the allegation.

To try to alleviate the shortages, several countries have airdropped food and opened a sea corridor from Cyprus to Gaza. But the aid is still insufficient to meet the needs of Gaza's 2.4 million inhabitants.

Harris says US has not ruled out 'consequences' if Israel invades Rafah

In a wide-ranging new interview with ABC News, Vice President Kamala Harris suggested there could be "consequences" for Israel if it moves ahead with a planned invasion of Rafah in its pursuit of Hamas fighters.

The city, on Gaza's southern border with Egypt, is thought to currently have some 1.4 million people in it.

According to the U.N., many Palestinians fled there from elsewhere in the territory amid the ongoing war, sparked by Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack.

"We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake," Harris told ABC News' Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott in part of the interview that aired Sunday on "This Week."

"Let me tell you something: I have studied the maps. There's nowhere for those folks to go," Harris said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this month he'd approved a plan to invade Rafah, an announcement that prompted President Joe Biden to relay what the White House called "deep concerns" about the safety of the many civilians sheltering in the city.

Tens of thousands of people have died in Gaza so far, according to the Hamas-run health ministry there.

Netanyahu has maintained that going into Rafah is necessary to dismantle Hamas in the wake of their attack; Israeli forces also insist they can move civilians out of the battlegrounds and toward "humanitarian islands" -- but the U.S., which is a major supporter of Israel's military, has sharply criticized the possibility of a large-scale incursion.

Scott on Sunday pressed the vice president, asking if America would consider "consequences" if Netanyahu went forward -- something he said he was willing to do despite the opposition.

"Well, we're going to take it one step at a time, but we've been very clear in terms of our perspective on whether or not that should happen," Harris said.

Scott followed up: "Are you ruling out that there would be consequences from the United States?"

"I am ruling out nothing," Harris replied.

In the interview, Harris was also asked about Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's call for new elections in Israel, which Netanyahu decried as "wholly inappropriate" meddling in his country's politics.

Biden has not echoed Schumer's position but did praise the senator's overall comments as a "good speech."

Harris told Scott on "This Week" that "I will not speak for Sen. Schumer, but we are very clear that that is on the Israeli people to make a decision about when they will have an election and who, of course, they elect to lead their government. That's for them to say."

Scott asked Harris if she thought Netanyahu was "an obstacle to peace," as Schumer had said.

"I believe that we have got to continue to enforce what we know to be and should be the priorities in terms of what is happening in Gaza," Harris said without directly answering the question. "We've been very clear that far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. We have been very clear that Israel and the Israeli people and Palestinians are entitled to an equal amount of security and dignity."

Separately, addressing a domestic issue, Harris would not rule out executive action to tackle the high number of migrants at the southern border. The president has been considering tightening asylum restrictions, ABC News previously reported.

Polling shows Biden gets low marks on immigration, which is a top issue for many Americans. Republicans have continued to hammer away at the president over the border.

Though Harris maintained that Congress has the "immense power and authority and responsibility" to address it -- after conservative lawmakers recently failed to agree on a bipartisan immigration deal in the Senate -- she also said the Biden administration is going to do "what we can."

"As of right now, is that executive action on the border still on the table?" Scott asked. "Can we see that?"

Harris initially pointed back to Capitol Hill, saying, "That does not absolve the fact that the real fix is going to be when Congress acts."

When Scott pressed again, the vice president said, "Yes, for consideration."

The interview took place at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the site of the Valentine's Day mass shooting in 2018 that killed 17 students and staff.

Harris was visiting the school -- which remains an active crime scene -- with some of the victims' families.

"What happened here six years ago is tragic by every measure," Harris told Scott.

She later said it was "important" that she visited the school "to give witness to how [gun violence in America] affects real people."

"We have to think of this as more than statistics and we certainly have to understand that we should have empathy that requires us to know this can't be the subject of political gamesmanship," the vice president said.

She said there were "reasonable" measures that could be taken to tackle gun violence, including so-called red flag laws that a 2022 law provided further state funding to implement.

But, as Scott noted, only six states have used that money.

"That's why it's been a challenge," Harris said. "I'm gonna assume that they need a little motivation, and hopefully we've been able to bring it to them."

Harris and President Biden have ramped up their travel in recent weeks ahead of an expected general election rematch with former President Donald Trump. But both of them have yet to commit to debating Trump or his future running mate.

"Who am I debating?" Harris said to Scott.

"If you're comparing yourself to the alternative, and that is really the crux of a lot of what the Biden campaign message is, isn't there a case to be made that the best way to do that is to get out on the debate stage?" Scott asked Harris.

"Well, we'll get to that at some point, but you are absolutely right," the vice president said, "this election in November is binary."