As the grueling Israel-Hamas conflict hit the three-month mark Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken pushed forward with an urgent Middle East mission amid fears the tinderbox region could explode into a wider war.
The visit by Blinken, who was in Jordan on Sunday before traveling to Israel this week, came as the Israeli military indicated it may be winding down major combat in northern Gaza. Israeli Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the military would “continue to deepen the achievement” there but focus on the central and southern parts of the territory.
The Biden administration has repeatedly implored Israel to limit its offensive in Gaza, launched after Hamas’ brutal attacks on Israeli border communities on Oct. 7. The militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 240 people hostage.
Israel’s retaliatory strikes in Gaza, home to 2.3 million Palestinians, have left more than 22,700 dead and 58,000 injured, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. Israel says many of the casualties are the fault of Hamas, who it says uses people as shields and operates out of residential areas and hospitals.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued to stand firm Sunday that the war won’t end until Hamas is crushed and the hostages are returned.
“I say this to both our enemies and our friend,” Netanyahu told his cabinet. “This is our responsibility and this is the obligation of all of us.”
A family’s struggle:As Israel’s war with Hamas rages on, the family of an American hostage waits anxiously
Developments:
∎ Officials at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis said they received the bodies of 18 people, including 12 children, who were killed in an Israeli strike late Saturday. More than 50 people were injured in the strike on a home in the Khan Younis refugee camp.
∎ Two journalists were killed Sunday in an airstrike near the southern city of Rafah, including Hamza Dahdouh, the oldest son of Wael Dahdouh, Al-Jazeera’s well-known chief correspondent in Gaza, the Arabic channel and local medical officials said. Al-Jazeera broadcast footage of Dahdouh sobbing next to his son’s body and holding his hand. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
∎ Departure and arrival information at Beirut’s international airport was replaced Sunday by a message accusing Hezbollah of putting Lebanon at risk of an all-out war with Israel, after opponents of the militant group hacked the display screens. Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel for several weeks.
A 50-year friendship:A close look at caring dialogue on Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Blinken meets leaders in Jordan, urges Israel to use restraint
Blinken’s trip, his fourth Middle East mission in recent months, comes as developments in Lebanon, northern Israel, the Red Sea and Iraq have ratcheted up fears over a more widespread conflict.
Hours before Blinken’s meetings Saturday, Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia fired a volley of rockets at northern Israel it said was a response to the targeted killing, presumably by Israel, of a top Hamas leader last week. Recent attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have also disrupted international trade and fed into mounting tensions.
Blinken on Sunday met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi. The king “warned of the catastrophic repercussions” of the war and urged the U.S. to demand an immediate cease-fire, a statement by the Royal Court said.
The State Department said in a readout of the meeting that Blinken “stressed U.S. opposition to forcible displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza and the critical need to protect Palestinian civilians in the West Bank from extremist settler violence.”
During the trip, Blinken again urged Israel to scale back its military offensive and increase the amount of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza. He toured the World Food Program’s Regional Coordination warehouse in the Jordanian capital, where trucks are preparing aid to be delivered to Gaza through the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings.
Blinken will also travel to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates later Sunday and Saudi Arabia on Monday. He will then visit Israel and the West Bank on Tuesday and Wednesday before ending the trip in Egypt.
“These are not necessarily easy conversations,” Blinken said at an earlier stop in Greece. “There are different perspectives, different needs, different requirements. But it is vital that we engage in this diplomacy now both for the sake of Gaza itself and more broadly the sake of the future for Israelis and Palestinians and for the region as a whole.”
Palestinian girl killed as police respond to West Bank attack
A young Palestinian girl was killed Sunday evening when Israeli police shot two suspected attackers who rammed their van into a West Bank checkpoint, officials said, as violent incidents continued to proliferate in the occupied territory since the war started.
The confrontation near the Palestinian village of Biddu, northwest of Jerusalem, took place hours after nine people were killed in other West Bank unrest.
Police said a man and woman inside the van were shot, but a girl in another vehicle nearby was hit as well. The girl, who was reported to be 3 or 4 years old, was pronounced dead by Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service, which also said a female officer was lightly wounded. There was no immediate information on the condition of the suspects.
The U.N. humanitarian office known as OCHA reports that 315 Palestinians had been killed as of Jan. 5 in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since the war started Oct. 7, the vast majority of them by Israeli forces. The 507 Palestinians killed in the enclave last year represents the largest number since OCHA began record-keeping in 2005.
Family of US hostage endures a draining wait for news
Omer Neutra’s absence hangs on a dog tag around his father’s neck, declaring in Hebrew that his heart is held captive in Gaza. It’s displayed in Omer’s face emblazoned on his dad’s T-shirt and in the photos taped to empty chairs at holiday tables.
His absence drives his mother’s daily inner talks with her missing son, and her plans for a new apartment to be waiting for him to rebuild his life. It flickers in the candles his parents lit and watched burn down to the chocolate icing on his 22nd birthday.
For three months, it has fueled Ronen and Orna Neutra’s all-consuming mission to free their son, who grew up on Long Island and deferred college to spend a year in Israel, leading him into the Israeli army and, on Oct. 7, to his apparent capture by Hamas. Read more here.
Contributing: The Associated Press
