LAST UPDATE | 9 Jan
US TOP DIPLOMAT Antony Blinken has said that Israel has agreed on a plan for a UN mission to assess the situation in war-torn northern Gaza to enable the safe return of displaced Palestinians.
Blinken is on his fourth round of Middle East crisis diplomacy since the conflict broke out.
“As Israel’s campaign moves to a lower intensity phase in northern Gaza and as the IDF (Israel army) scales down its forces there, we agreed today on a plan for the UN to carry out an assessment mission,” Blinken said during a visit to Israel.
“It will determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return safely to the north.”
During his visit, he also urged Israel to “avoid further civilian harm” in the besieged Palestinian territory.
In a Tel Aviv meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the secretary of state reaffirmed US “support for Israel’s right to prevent the terrorist attacks of 7 October from being repeated”, said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
But Blinken also “stressed the importance of avoiding further civilian harm and protecting civilian infrastructure in Gaza”, said Miller about territory where more than 23,000 people have died in the conflict, local health officials say.
For the longer term, Miller said, Blinken “reiterated the need to ensure lasting, sustainable peace for Israel and the region, including by the realisation of a Palestinian state”.
An AFP correspondent reported intense strikes overnight in Khan Yunis and Rafah, the biggest cities in the south of Gaza which are crowded with internally displaced people.
The army said its forces had killed 40 militants over the past 24 hours in “expanded ground operations including air strikes” in Khan Yunis, and that troops had seized AK-47 assault rifles, rocket launchers and other weapons.
The Gaza conflict broke out after Hamas gunmen launched their 7 October attack that resulted in about 1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants of Hamas, considered a “terrorist” group by the United States and European Union, also took around 250 hostages. Israel says 132 of them remain captive, including at least 25 believed to have been killed.
Israel has responded with relentless bombardment and a ground invasion of Gaza that have killed at least 23,210 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The Israeli army says its death toll inside Gaza had risen to 185 after nine soldiers were killed yesterday.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, speaking in Qatar today, argued that the 7 October attack “came after an attempt to marginalise the Palestinian cause”.
He charged that, “despite the heavy price, the massacres and the war of genocide, it (Israel) failed to achieve any of its goals”.
In further comments, released later by Hamas in Gaza, he called on Muslim states “to support the resistance with weapons, because this is … not the battle of the Palestinian people alone”.
The conflict has displaced most of Gaza’s 2.4 million people, and the United Nations says many are at risk of famine and disease.
With only minimal aid entering Gaza, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem charged that “everyone in Gaza is going hungry” as the “direct results of Israel’s declared policy”.
Since the conflict started, fears have also grown of an escalating conflict between Israel and its other regional enemies, a loose alliance of Iran-backed armed groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Israel has traded cross-border fire with Hezbollah for three months and more recently killed senior operatives of the Shiite Muslim militant group as well as of Hamas on Lebanese soil.
Hezbollah said today it had launched a drone attack on Israel’s “northern command centre” in Safed as part of its response to the killings of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri and Hezbollah field commander Wissam Tawil.
The Israeli army confirmed that a “hostile aircraft” had come down at one of its bases in the north and said that “no injuries or damage were reported”.
The Israeli army also said yesterday it had killed a “central” Hamas figure in Syria, Hassan Akasha, who had led “terrorist cells which fired rockets … toward Israeli territory”.
Blinken also voiced hope that, after the conflict, Israel could push on with its efforts towards regional integration, following its US-brokered normalisation deals with the United Arab Emirates and other states.
“I think there actually are real opportunities there, but we have to get through this very challenging moment,” Blinken said after meeting Foreign Minister Israel Katz on the latest leg of a tour that has already taken him to Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Met with @IsraeliPM and reaffirmed our support for Israel’s right to prevent another October 7 from occurring.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) January 9, 2024
I also stressed the importance of avoiding civilian harm, protecting civilian infrastructure, and ensuring the distribution of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza. pic.twitter.com/1g7h27Ci8f
As the ground offensive continues, the Israeli army has claimed to have largely achieved military control over northern Gaza, and said that the war is now entering a new phase.
Army spokesman Daniel Hagari, speaking to The New York Times, said the next phase would involve fewer soldiers and air strikes and that a troop reduction had already begun this month.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, speaking in Cairo, also stressed the need for “less intensive” combat and greater aid flows, while reiterating Berlin’s solid support for Israel.
Her Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry voiced fears about the displacement of Palestinians and said “two million citizens cannot remain trapped in one spot in the south in this way”.
Baerbock stressed that “we will not accept displacement. We will not accept it in the West Bank, we will not accept it in Gaza”.
Violence has also surged in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli police confirmed three people were killed yesterday during a raid on Tulkarem to arrest a “wanted terrorist”.
Israeli army raids and settler attacks in the West Bank have killed at least 333 people since 7 October, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry.
Palestinian officials accused Israel of a “brutal crime” after footage shared on social media appeared to show a military vehicle running over a dead militant in Tulkarem, an incident the officials said summed up a “culture of hatred” fostered by Israeli forces.
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