RABAT, November 1. /TASS/. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held a phone conversation with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to discuss the latest escalation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

"President Abbas called for the necessity of opening permanent humanitarian corridors to bring in medical and food relief aid and to provide water and electricity as quickly as possible," Palestine’s WAFA news agency reported.

The Palestinian leader underscored that "the massacres committed by the Israeli war machine cannot be tolerated, and that the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip must immediately stop."

He also urged "to spare civilians from the scourge of war, in light of the barbaric Israeli bombing of defenseless civilians in the Gaza Strip."

"Targeting safe civilians in their homes and hospitals and demolishing buildings on top of their heads are brutal crimes that cannot be tolerated and must be stop immediately," Abbas went on.

He also called upon "to end settler terrorism against the Palestinian people in the West Bank and East Jerusalem."

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 when Hamas militants staged a surprise attack on Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and has been delivering rocket attacks on Gaza as well as some districts in Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.

On October 27, the IDF’s chief spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, announced the expansion of Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza.