UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres will visit Egypt’s border with Gaza on Saturday to renew pleas for a ceasefire that could bring relief to a territory devastated by more than five months of war between Israel and Hamas.

His trip comes as Israel threatens to launch a major military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, just over the border from Egypt, despite international appeals against such an attack.

A majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are sheltering around Rafah.

Though conditions are worse in the north of the strip, the plight of civilians across the territory has deteriorated sharply as the conflict has ground on.

Guterres arrived on Saturday in Al Arish in Egypt’s northern Sinai, where much of the international relief for Gaza is delivered and stockpiled.

Receiving him, regional governor Mohamed Shusha said some 7,000 trucks were waiting in North Sinai to deliver aid to Gaza, but that inspection procedures demanded by Israel had held up the flow of relief, according to a statement from Shusha’s office.