US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel, where he is expected to call for localized pauses in fighting to allow aid into Gaza, as the Israeli military said it had surrounded Gaza City and was was moving more towards the center and fighting in close proximity.
When Blinken left Washington, he said he would discuss concrete measures to minimize harm to civilians in Gaza when he held talks with Benjamin Netanyahu.
It is his second meeting with Israel’s prime minister since the war began nearly a month ago, when Hamas militants killed 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, and took more than 240 hostages.
Since then, Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Gaza have reportedly killed at least 9,061 people, including 3,760 children, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said, prompting warnings from independent United Nations experts that Palestinians in the territory were “at serious risk of genocide. ”We call on Israel and its allies to accept an immediate ceasefire. “We are running out of time,” the group of UN special rapporteurs said in a statement.
double front
Blinken’s arrival came as thousands of cross-border Palestinian workers and workers in Israel and the occupied West Bank were sent back to Gaza.
Hassan Nasrallah, head of the influential Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, said he will break his silence with a broadcast from Beirut, which comes in the wake of an increase in violence on Israel’s northern border.
Hezbollah said Thursday that it had simultaneously attacked 19 positions in Israel. Clashes have been contained to the border, and Hezbollah has used only a fraction of the firepower that Nasrallah has been threatening Israel with for years.
By some estimates, some 50 Hezbollah fighters have been killed since October 7 in exchanges in which it attempted to attack Israeli positions with anti-tank missiles.
US national security spokesman John Kirby said of Nasrallah’s speech: “I don’t think we’ve seen any specific indication yet that Hezbollah is ready to move in full force. So we’ll see what he has to say.”
Positions
The White House has said any pause in fighting should be temporary and localized, and insisted they would not prevent Israel from defending itself. Blinken is scheduled to meet with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi in Amman on Saturday.
In a statement, Safadi said Israel must end the war in Gaza, where he said it was committing war crimes by bombing civilians and imposing a siege. Reuters journalists said thousands of Palestinian workers in Israel and the occupied West Bank were sent back to Gaza.
In Gaza, mounting casualties among Palestinian civilians, along with acute shortages of food, water, medicine and fuel, have intensified calls from world leaders for a pause in fighting or a ceasefire.
Israel has rejected those calls, saying it is targeting Hamas fighters whom it accuses of intentionally hiding among the population and civilian buildings.
by RN
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