(Tribune News Service) — U.S. President Joe Biden warned Israel against an invasion of the city of Rafah in southern Gaza as cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas remained deadlocked at the beginning of Ramadan.

The U.S. had been hoping for a breakthrough in the negotiations before Islam’s holy month, which began after sundown on Sunday.

The deal as envisioned would see a six-week pause in fighting and the release of dozens of Israeli hostages in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Negotiations remained at an impasse, however, with Israel accusing Hamas of stalling in a bid to inflame violence across the region during Ramadan, and Hamas saying more Israeli hostages had died in captivity than earlier believed.

Israel has threatened to invade Rafah, the last bastion of Hamas in Gaza and where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering, if the talks fail. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has said Israel won’t stop its campaign until the Iran-backed militant group is destroyed, with its main leaders killed, captured or exiled.

In an interview with MSNBC on Saturday, Biden expressed hope that a cease-fire agreement may still be reached and warned that an Israeli invasion of Rafah would represent a “red line.”

Biden’s comments came as U.S. Central Command began sending supplies to Gaza to build a temporary dock to deliver large quantities of humanitarian aid by sea. Ships will carry food, water, medicine and other supplies to the coastal enclave.

The U.S. has been pushing for increased aid for Palestinians in Gaza, where a hunger crisis has developed during the five-month war, and sought to rein in Israeli’s military activity.

Biden, in a statement released on Sunday to mark the beginning of Ramadan, said the U.S. will continue to lead international efforts to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza by land, air, and sea.

“We’ll continue to work with Israel to expand deliveries by land, insisting that it facilitate more routes and open more crossings to get more aid to more people,” he said.

The war has been raging since Hamas operatives killed 1,200 people and abducted 250 during their Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel.

More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October, according to officials in the Hamas-run territory. Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union.

The most recent temporary truce was reached in November, during which dozens of Israeli hostages were released from Gaza in exchange for prisoners held in Israeli jails.

“We cannot have another 30,000 Palestinians dead,” Biden said on MSNBC, adding that Netanyahu “must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken.”

“He is hurting Israel more than helping Israel,” Biden said in some of the harshest criticism he’s leveled against the Israeli leader.

Netanyahu, in an interview with Politico, asserted his policies are supported by most Israelis. “I don’t know exactly what the president meant, but if he meant by that that I’m pursuing private policies against the majority, the wish of the majority of Israelis, and that this is hurting the interests of Israel, then he’s wrong on both counts,” Netanyahu said, according to a transcript distributed by the Government Press Office.

Biden said he would never cut off weapon supplies to Israel and affirmed Israel’s right to fight Hamas.

Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, which is handling the negotiations, said talks were ongoing to “narrow the gaps” between Israel and Hamas.

“At this stage, Hamas is holding to its position as if it was uninterested in a deal and is striving to ignite the region during Ramadan at the expense of the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip,” Mossad said in a statement.

Hamas is believed to be holding about 130 Israeli hostages taken in the Oct. 7 raids. A Hamas official, in an interview with Bloomberg, claimed dozens have been killed by Israeli fire.

“At least 60 of the occupation’s prisoners have been killed at the hands of the occupation army during the continuous bombardment all over the Gaza Strip,” said Husam Badran. The claim couldn’t be independently verified.

Netanyahu’s office said a special delegation of hostages’ families would leave for New York Sunday night for a special UN Security Council discussion focused on the Oct. 7 attacks.

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