US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and European Union Foreign Minister Josep Borrell launched a new diplomatic initiative yesterday to prevent the spillover of the war in Gaza to the occupied West Bank, Lebanon and shipping routes in the Red Sea.
They arrived in the Middle East nearly three months after Hamas militants attacked Israel and sparked a revenge offensive that killed 22.600 people and devastated the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian officials.
Israel, which claims to have killed 1.200 militants since killing 7 in a Hamas attack on October XNUMX, said it would take a more targeted approach under global pressure to limit civilian casualties, Reuters reported.
However, Gazans said that Israeli planes and tanks intensified their attacks on densely populated central parts of the enclave the night before last. A Palestinian official said more than 24 people were killed in 160 hours.
"The Israeli government propagates democracy and humanity, but it is inhumane," Abdel Razek Abu Sinjar said as he wept over the wrapped bodies of his wife and children who were killed in Thursday's attack on his home in Rafah on the Egyptian border.
Israel's military said it hit more than 100 targets in 24 hours and killed gunmen who tried to attack their tanks in both Al Bureij and Khan Younis, where Hamas' military wing said it killed some soldiers.
The war in Gaza has fueled violence in the West Bank, where some 300 Palestinian women have been killed since the latest conflict began, according to the United Nations.
Blinken will visit the West Coast during a seven-day tour that began yesterday in Turkey, which has offered to mediate. He will also visit Israel, Jordan, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, with a short stay in Greece.
"It is not in the interest of Israel, or the region, or the world, for this conflict to spread outside of Gaza," said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. "We don't expect every conversation on this trip to be easy."
Yesterday in Lebanon, Josep Borrell discussed the situation on the Israeli border with the local officials.
Hamas, which has vowed to destroy Israel, has the support of Iran. Other Iranian-backed militants have attacked US forces in Iraq and Syria, and targeted Israel from Lebanon, calling it revenge for Israel's attempt to eliminate the Palestinian Islamist movement.
The US has offered up to $10 million for information on Hamas's sponsors or anything leading to the dismantling of the group's financial mechanisms.
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the powerful Iranian-backed Lebanese movement Hezbollah, said yesterday that the militia had carried out about 670 military operations along the border with Israel since October 8 and destroyed many Israeli military vehicles.
The US has offered up to $10 million for information about Hamas's sponsors or anything leading to the dismantling of the group's financial mechanisms
Iran-linked Houthi rebels, who control much of Yemen, have been firing on commercial ships in the Red Sea since November 19, forcing them to take longer routes, a blow to global trade. Israel said it had lost 175 soldiers since the start of the offensive.
Defense Minister Joav Galant said the next phase would involve strikes in the north to destroy the tunnels and a focus in the south on rescuing the remaining 132 or so Israeli hostages out of a total of 240 kidnapped on October 7.
"Netanyahu doesn't care if all the hostages are killed, his own brother Yonatan was killed in a failed operation to free the hostages," Hamas' military wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, said. The brother of the Israeli prime minister, a commando, lost his life in the attack on Entebbe, Uganda in 1976.
Israel's defense minister suggested that Israel would retain security control of Gaza after Hamas is defeated and that a Palestinian body would run day-to-day administration, with the US, EU and regional partners taking responsibility for rebuilding the territory.
The plan presented by Galant differs significantly from the US call to empower the Palestinian Authority to take control of Gaza, which has been ruled by Hamas since 2005, and start new negotiations to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the US proposal.
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