Rishi Sunak has arrived in Israel as he prepares to meet leaders in the Middle East and call for any spread in the violence in the Israeli-Hamas war to be avoided.

The prime minister will hold talks with his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and president Isaac Herzog as he starts a two-day trip expected to take in other capitals in the region.

He will urge Middle East leaders to “avoid further dangerous escalation”, saying that “too many lives have been lost” already since Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel killed more than 1,400 people.

His visit comes after US president Joe Biden flew into Israel on Wednesday – backing Israel by saying that the “other team” were behind the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital.

Mr Biden urged Israel not to be “consumed by” rage in the wake of Hamas’s deadly attack and to avoid making the same “mistakes” that the US did after 9/11.

The president’s trip appeared to herald a breakthrough – with Mr Netanyahus’s office announcing it had approved a request from Mr Biden to allow Egypt to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The first crack in a 10-day siege on the territory came a day after a deadly blast at a Gaza City hospital killed hundreds. Mr Biden said his claim that the explosion was “the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group” was based on “data from my Defence Department”.

Hamas blamed Israel for the strike, while Tel Aviv pointed the finger at a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad has dismissed the claim.

Mr Sunak has against a “rush to judgement”. The PM said on Wednesday: “Our intelligence services have been rapidly analysing the evidence to independently establish the facts.”

The Foreign Office has since updated its travel guidance to Lebanon, which shares a border with Israel, advising against all travel to the country and encouraging British nationals currently there to “leave now while commercial options remain available”.

During the PM’s to the Middle East, in which he is expected to meet a number of counterparts, No 10 said he plans to press for aid to be allowed into Gaza and for those “trapped in the territory” to be allowed to leave the 25-mile area.

A No 10 official said he will share his condolences for the “terrible loss of life in Israel and Gaza in the last two weeks as a result of Hamas’s brutal terrorist attacks”.

He will call for the “barbaric” acts carried out by the Palestinian militant group not to “become a catalyst for further escalation of conflict in the region”.

The 2,200-mile trip means Mr Sunak will not be in the UK when the results of Thursday’s Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire by-election contests are announced in the early hours of Friday, with the Tories battling to hold onto what were once regarded as safe seats.

In parallel to Mr Sunak’s travel, foreign secretary James Cleverly will visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar in the coming days. “I am meeting counterparts from influential states in the region to push for calm and stability, facilitate humanitarian access into Gaza and work together to secure the release of hostages,” he said.

Since the flare-up of violence in Israel and Gaza, the Community Security Trust, a Jewish charity, and police have recorded a steep rise in antisemitism in the UK.

Robin Simcox, the commissioner for countering extremism, said the rise was a sign that Britain was “very sick indeed” and should be a “wake-up call”. In an article for The Times, he suggested the “normalisation” of anti-Israel extremism and antisemitism was because of a “failed policy mix of mass migration and multiculturalism”.

Liverpool and Egypt forward Mohamed Salah used his significant social media following to call for the massacres in the conflict to stop and for aid to be allowed into Gaza immediately.

In a video post, Salah said: “The scenes at the hospital last night were horrifying. The people of Gaza need food, water and medical supplies urgently.”