U.S. President Donald Trump. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Antony Blinken’s latest trip comes as the Israeli military has intensified its campaign in the Palestinian enclave as well as in Lebanon against Iran-aligned Hezbollah militia. File
| Photo Credit: AP

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in Israel on Tuesday (October 22, 2024), the first stop of a wider Middle East tour aimed at reviving Gaza ceasefire talks and discussing the enclave’s future following the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, but any breakthrough ahead of the looming U.S. election looks elusive.

The top U.S. diplomat’s latest trip — his eleventh to the region since Palestinian Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7 triggering the Gaza war — comes as the Israeli military has intensified its campaign in the Palestinian enclave as well as in Lebanon against Iran-aligned Hezbollah militia.

Mr. Blinken’s planned week-long trip, which will include a stop in Jordan on Wednesday (October 23, 2024) and Doha, also comes as the region braces for Israel’s response to Iran’s October 1 ballistic missile attack on Israel. The retaliation could disrupt oil markets and risks igniting a full-blown war between the arch-enemies.

On Gaza, Mr. Blinken will focus discussions on how to end the war, plans for the enclave after the fighting ends and how to improve humanitarian assistance, said a senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Last week Mr. Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote to Israeli officials demanding concrete measures to address the worsening situation in Gaza, or face potential restrictions on U.S. military aid.

The official said that in his meetings with Israel and Arab countries, Mr. Blinken will drill down on “day after” issues, particularly security, governance and reconstruction. Having detailed plans for each of these has been seen as prerequisites for achieving any lasting resolution to the conflict.

The secretary of state will also discuss with Israel and other countries how to secure a diplomatic resolution to the conflict with Hezbollah, and will continue Washington’s conversation with the Israelis about their expected response to Iran’s missile attack, said the official.

Breakthrough ‘hard to imagine’

Experts say Hamas and Israel remain deeply at odds and are unlikely to make significant concessions before the November 5 U.S. presidential election, which could upend U.S. policy.

“It’s very hard to imagine” that Mr. Blinken would score a breakthrough this week, said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, given that neither Hamas nor Benjamin Netanyahu have any urgency to end the war.

“Taking advantage of the moment is a fundamentally misleading sort of concept in this case because I’m not sure there is a moment,” Mr. Miller said.

The Mr. Biden administration cast the killing of Sinwar by the Israeli military last week as a possible opening that would finally pave the way to end the Gaza war. Still, Israeli Prime Minister Mr. Netanyahu says fighting will continue.

Israel is accelerating military operations to push Hezbollah away from its northern border while thrusting into Gaza’s densely packed Jabalia refugee camp in what Palestinians and U.N. agencies fear could be an attempt to seal off northern Gaza from the rest of the enclave.

Analysts say Mr. Netanyahu may prefer to wait out the end of U.S. President Joe Biden’s term, which ends in January, and take his chances with the next President, whether Democratic nominee Kamala Harris or her Republican rival Donald Trump. Mr. Netanyahu spoke to Mr. Trump about the conflict by phone on Saturday (October 19, 2024), both Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Netanyahu’s offices said.

A Gaza ceasefire proposal that the U.S. and mediators Egypt and Qatar have worked on for months is no longer feasible, Mr. Miller said, and the lack of command and control within Hamas also complicates the negotiation process.

“The proposal that would be most realistic would be if Blinken came and said ‘we’ll do an all for all’. You get all the hostages back, and the Israelis will declare a ceasefire,” Mr. Miller said, cautioning that even that formulation would have many questions that needed to be answered.

Speaking to reporters on Monday (October 21, 2024), deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel insisted that U.S. officials feel “there is an opportunity to move the ball forward” on a ceasefire.

“I’m not going to speculate on any immediate end product or outcome (from the trip), but we feel that it is important to engage not just with the Israelis, but also other partners in the region,” he said.

Palestinians shelter in a tent camp near a wastewater pool, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 15, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israel hammered the Gaza Strip from the air, sea and land on Monday as the war in the Palestinian territory showed no sign of abating, with Hamas saying it was pulling out of truce talks.

Shells rained down on the neighbourhoods of Tal Al-Hawa, Sheikh Ajlin and Al-Sabra in Gaza City, AFP correspondents reported, while eyewitnesses said the Israeli Army had shelled the Al-Mughraqa area and the northern outskirts of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

Paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent said they had retrieved the bodies of five persons, including three children, after Israeli air strikes in the Al-Maghazi camp, also in the central Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, eyewitnesses reported Israeli gunship fire east of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, and shelling and Apache helicopter attacks in western areas of the southernmost city of Rafah.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it was continuing its activity throughout the coastal territory, and said it had conducted raids in Rafah and central Gaza that killed “a number of” militants, as well as air strikes throughout the strip over the past day.

It also said its naval forces had been firing at targets in Gaza.

Talks on hold

The relentless bombardments came as prospects dwindled for a truce and hostage release deal being secured any time soon.

Hamas, the Iran-backed Islamist group that Israel has been fighting in Gaza for over nine months, said on Sunday it was withdrawing from ceasefire talks.

The decision followed an Israeli strike targeting the head of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif, which the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said killed 92 people.

Deif’s fate remains unknown, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying there was “no certainty” he was dead while a senior Hamas official told AFP that Deif was “well and directly overseeing” operations.

Speaking after the strike on al-Mawasi, a second senior official from the militant group cited Israeli “massacres” and its attitude to negotiations as a reason for suspending negotiations.

But according to the official, Haniyeh told international mediators Hamas was “ready to resume negotiations” when Israel’s government “demonstrates seriousness in reaching a ceasefire agreement and a prisoner exchange deal”.

Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden had suggested a deal might be close, saying at a NATO summit that both sides had agreed to a framework he had set out in late May.

Hamas on Monday lashed out at the U.S., accusing it of supporting “genocide” by supplying Israel with “internationally banned” weapons.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the… American disdain for the blood of the children and women of our Palestinian people… by providing all types of prohibited weapons to the ‘Israeli’ occupation,” a statement from the Hamas government media office said.

Talks between the warring parties have been mediated by Qatar and Egypt, with U.S. support, but months of negotiations have failed to bring a breakthrough.

School hit

The war was sparked by Hamas’s surprise October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza including 42 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,584 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data provided by the Gaza health ministry.

The war and accompanying siege have devastated the Palestinian territory, destroying much of its infrastructure, leaving the majority of its 2.4 million residents displaced and causing a dire shortage of food, medicines and other basic goods.

Among the devastated facilities have been multiple schools. On Sunday, Israeli forces struck a UN-run school in Nuseirat camp that was being used as a shelter for displaced people but which the military said “served as a hideout” for militants.

The civil defence agency in Gaza said 15 people were killed in the strike, the fifth attack in just over a week to hit a school used as shelter by displaced Palestinians.

People search the rubble of a collapsed building in the aftermath of Israeli bombardment at the Jaouni school run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on July 6, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Hamas authorities in Gaza said an Israeli strike on Saturday on a UN-run school where thousands of displaced were sheltering killed 16 people.

Israel’s military said its aircraft had targeted “terrorists” operating around the Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat, central Gaza.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which condemned the strike as an “odious massacre”, said 50 injured were taken to hospital from the school.

Some 7,000 people were sheltering in the school at the time of the attack, the Hamas government press office said. Dozens of people scrambled through the rubble after the strike to find survivors.

The press office said the school was run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and most of the casualties were “children, women, and elderly”.

“This is the fourth time they have targeted the school without warning,” said one woman, Samah Abu Amsha, who told how some children were killed as they read the Koran in a class when the missile hit.

Also read | Israeli strikes in Rafah: At least 37 Palestinians, most in tents, killed

“Shrapnel flew at me inside the classroom and the children were injured,” she told AFP.

Hamas called the attack “a new massacre and crime committed by this criminal enemy as part of its war of genocide against our Palestinian people”.

The Israeli military said in a statement it “struck several terrorists operating in structures located in the area of UNRWA’s Al-Jawni school”.

“This location served as a hideout and operational infrastructure from which attacks against IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip were directed and carried out,” it added, insisting that “steps were taken in order to mitigate the risk of harming civilians”.

‘No place is safe’

Israel has agreed to meetings with mediators on a ceasefire initiative but has kept up its offensive in the territory that started on October 7 after the Hamas attack on southern Israel.

UNRWA said two of its workers were killed in a strike at Al-Bureij, also in central Gaza, early Saturday. The agency has a major food warehouse in the district.

The Al-Aqsa hospital said nine other bodies were brought to its morgue from the strike.

The UN agency said 194 of its workers have now been killed since the war started.

An UNRWA spokesperson said that since the war began, more than half of the agency’s facilities have been hit and many were shelters. “As a result at least 500 people sheltering in those facilities have been killed,” the spokesperson told AFP.

Paramedics said 10 people, including three journalists, died in another strike on a house in Nuseirat on Saturday.

“Absolutely no place in the Gaza Strip is safe,” said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

The war began with the October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Hamas militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the military says are dead.

In response, Israel has carried out a military offensive that has killed at least 38,098 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run health ministry there.

Tel Aviv, Israel:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved Friday new talks on a Gaza ceasefire, a day after the world’s top court ordered Israel to ensure urgent humanitarian aid reaches people in the Palestinian territory.

But despite a binding United Nations Security Council resolution this week demanding an “immediate ceasefire”, fighting continued Friday, including around hospitals.

Regional fallout from the conflict also flared, with Israel saying it killed a Hezbollah rocket commander in Lebanon, and several Hezbollah fighters killed in Syria strikes that a war monitor blamed on Israel.

Netanyahu’s office said new talks on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release will take place in Doha and Cairo “in the coming days… with guidelines for moving forward in the negotiations”, days after they appeared stalled.

In its order, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague said: “Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine, but… famine is setting in.”

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, posted on X that the ruling was “a stark reminder that the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is man made + worsening”.

The court had ruled in January that Israel must facilitate “urgently needed” humanitarian aid to Gaza and prevent genocidal acts, but Israel rejected the case brought by South Africa.

The latest binding ICJ ruling, which has little means of enforcement, came as Israel’s military said Friday it was continuing operations in Al-Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest, for a 12th day.

Throughout the coastal territory, dozens of people were killed overnight, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said.

Among the dead were 12 people killed in a home in the southern city of Rafah, which has been regularly bombed ahead of a mooted Israeli ground operation there.

Men worked under the light of mobile phones to free people trapped under debris after an air strike, AFPTV images showed.

The ICJ ordered Israel to “take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay” the supply “of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance”.

‘Immediate ceasefire’

The war began with Hamas’s October 7 attack that resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign to destroy Hamas has killed at least 32,623 people, mostly women and children, Gaza’s health ministry says.

Large parts of the territory have been reduced to rubble, and most of Gaza’s population are now sheltering in Rafah.

On Monday the UN Security Council demanded an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, the release of hostages held by Hamas, and “ensuring humanitarian access”.

Member states are obliged to abide by such resolutions, but the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity said  nothing has changed on the ground.

Aid groups say only a fraction of the supplies required have been allowed in since October, when Israel placed Gaza under near-total siege.

Israel has blamed shortages on the Palestinian side, namely a lack of capacity to distribute aid, with humanitarians saying not enough trucks are allowed in to make deliveries.

With limited ground access, several nations have staged airdrops, and a sea corridor from Cyprus has delivered its first food aid.

Heavy damage

The UN says Gaza’s health system is collapsing “due to ongoing hostilities and access constraints”.

Israel’s military accuses Hamas and the Islamic Jihad of hiding inside medical facilities, using patients, staff and displaced people for cover — charges the operatives have denied.

On Friday the army said it was “continuing precise operation activities in Shifa Hospital” where it began a raid early last week.

Troops first raided Al-Shifa in November, before Israel in January announced it had “completed the dismantling” of Hamas’s command structure in northern Gaza. Palestinian group and commanders had since returned to Al-Shifa, the army said.

Netanyahu has said troops “are holding the northern Gaza Strip” and also the southern city of Khan Yunis, amid heavy fighting.

“We have bisected the Strip and we are preparing to enter Rafah,” he said Thursday.

Netanyahu is under domestic pressure over his failure to bring home all of the hostages seized by Hamas on October 7. Israel says about 130 captives remain in Gaza, including 34 presumed dead.

About 200 operatives have been killed during the latest Al-Shifa operation, the military said.

Near Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis, troops carried out “targeted raids on terrorist infrastructure”, killing dozens in combat backed by air support, the army said Thursday.

Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles have massed around another Khan Yunis health facility, the Nasser Hospital, the Gaza health ministry said.

An analysis of satellite images shows heavily damaged areas around the Nasser and Al-Amal hospitals.

Deadliest count

Since the Gaza war began, Israel has increased its strikes in Syria, targeting army positions and Iran-backed forces including Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, a key Hamas ally.

A Britain-based war monitor said Israeli air strikes Friday in north Syria killed at least 42 people, six from Hezbollah and 36 Syrian soldiers.

And Israel’s military said it killed Ali Abdel Hassan Naim, deputy commander of Hezbollah’s rocket unit, in an air strike in south Lebanon Friday.

US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators have tried to secure a truce in Gaza, but those talks had appeared deadlocked more than halfway through the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Tensions have risen between Netanyahu and Washington, which provides billions of dollars in military aid but has grown increasingly vocal about the war’s impact on civilians.

Washington has also raised the issue of Gaza’s post-war rule. It has suggested a future role for the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

On Thursday, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas approved the new government of prime minister Mohammed Mustafa, who said his cabinet will work on “visions to reunify the institutions, including assuming responsibility for Gaza”.

Hamas forcibly took Gaza from Abbas’s government in 2007.

Netanyahu says Israel must have “security responsibility” in Gaza, and has rejected calls for a Palestinian state.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)