The Defense of Israel and the Security Council in the Gaza War: Israeli Response to the Israel-Lebanese War and the U.S.-Israel War
Other stops during the trip include Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Next week, the deputy US secretary of state will visit the West Bank and Israel.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrwal said the group would retaliate for the killing of a Hamas leader with a rocket attack. Nasrallah said that if Hezbollah did not strike back, all of Lebanon would be vulnerable to Israeli attack. He appeared to be making his case for a response to the Lebanese public, even at the risk of escalating the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel as the war between Israel and Hamas rages on.
The Secretary of State will be in the Middle East this weekend, arriving in Jordan on Sunday. He already met with the president of Turkey. The deaths of civilians in Gaza, especially children, is unacceptable and should not be allowed by Israel, as Mr. Blinken and others have urged.
On Saturday, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said 122 Palestinians were killed over the past 24 hours, bringing the total since the start of the war to 22,722. The count does not differentiate between people. Women and children have been two-thirds of those who have been killed. The overall number of wounded rose to 58,166, the ministry said.
The local European Hospital received the bodies of 18 people killed in an airstrike on a house in the city’s Maan neighborhood, said the head of the nursing department. Citing witnesses, he said more than three dozen people had been sheltering in the house, including those displaced, when it was hit.
Israel has held Hamas responsible for civilian casualties, saying the group has embedded within in Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. Still, international criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war has grown more persistent because of the rising civilian death toll in Gaza. The United States has urged Israel to do more to prevent harm to civilians, even as it keeps sending weapons and munitions, while shielding its close ally against international censure.
The Hamas-Israel War: Israeli Operation in the Camp Muwasi and a Palestinians Enclave In Gaza Without a Foreign Minister
In discussions with the Turkish President and the Foreign Minister, Blinken will be requesting Turkish support for the plans for post-war Gaza that could include monetary or in-kind contributions as well as participation in a proposed multinational force that could operate.
With the campaign in Gaza far from over, the prospect of a wider war hung over the region in the past week. In a strike that US and other officials say was carried out by Israel, a senior Hamas official was killed in Lebanon. The Israeli government have not taken responsibility for the Hamas leader’s killing.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant floated a plan for the end of the war to Prime Minister Netanyahu last week. The plan seems to be in contradiction to the demands of the more conservative elements of the government and its allies like the United States.
The chief military spokesman said late Saturday in a news conference that there was still some Hamas fighters in northern Gaza, but they no longer worked under an organized military command. Admiral Hagari didn’t provide details about control in the north, nor specify how the military’s operation farther south would be different.
Displaced Palestinians carrying bags of wood at a makeshift tent camp in the Muwasi area, southern Gaza, last week. For three months, Israel has been bombarding Gaza, displacing a majority of the enclave’s residents.