After 19 months of pounding Gaza, Israel is now under growing pressure from unlikely quarters – some of its closest Western allies.

Palestinians in Gaza were still waiting for aid to arrive, U.N. officials said on Wednesday, two days after the Israeli government said it had lifted an 11-week-old blockade that has brought the Palestinian enclave to the brink of famine.

Israel’s allies are desperately trying to change the country’s war trajectory as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to relent on his mission to exterminate Hamas. French and Saudi Arabian officials are collaborating on a proposal that would completely disarm Hamas but allow the group to remain as a political entity with a role in a