By MATTHEW LEE, NAJIB JOBAIN and SAMY MAGDY (Associated Press)
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken confronted powerful talks with Israeli leaders on Gaza’s post-war future Tuesday, whereas Israel’s navy pushed forward with its offensive within the beleaguered territory, together with heavy bombardment and preventing that shook refugee camps.
The preventing despatched Palestinians scrambling to search out security and hampered help teams’ efforts to get aid to the inhabitants.
Blinken mentioned he had guarantees from 4 Arab nations and Turkey to assist rebuild Gaza after the conflict. But these nations additionally need to see an finish to the preventing in Gaza and concrete steps towards the eventual creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, one thing Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to not permit.
The U.S. and Israel additionally stay deeply divided over how Gaza might be run when — and if — its present Hamas rulers are defeated. American officers have known as for the Palestinian Authority, which presently governs components of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to take the reins in Gaza. Israeli leaders have rejected that concept however haven’t put ahead a concrete plan past saying they’ll keep open-ended navy management over the territory.
At the identical time, Blinken is making an attempt to forestall an all-out conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. After an Israeli strike final week hit Beirut, killing Hamas’s deputy chief, the 2 sides have stepped up their exchanges.
“There is lots to talk about, in particular about the way forward,” Blinken mentioned after assembly Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah mentioned its exploding drones focused the Israeli military northern command within the city of Safed — deeper into Israel than earlier hearth by the group. The Israeli navy mentioned a drone fell at a base within the north with out inflicting injury, suggesting it had been intercepted. Military officers didn’t establish the bottom.
The United States has pressed Israel to scale down its offensive in Gaza to extra exact operations focusing on Hamas. But the tempo of dying and destruction has remained largely the identical, with a number of hundred Palestinians killed every day, in response to well being officers in Gaza.
Israel has vowed to maintain going till it destroys Hamas all through the territory, in response to the assault on Oct. 7, when terrorists killed some 1,200 folks, primarily civilians, in southern Israel and kidnapped round 250 others. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, Canada and the European Union.
Still, after three months of preventing, Hamas continues to place up a fierce struggle.
The Israeli navy says it has dismantled Hamas infrastructure in northern Gaza, the place massive swaths of the cityscape have been demolished. But preventing continues there in opposition to what Israel says are pockets of militants. The offensive’s focus has shifted to the southern metropolis of Khan Younis and plenty of city refugee camps in central Gaza.
“The fighting will continue throughout 2024,” navy spokesman Daniel Hagari mentioned.
Since the conflict started, Israel’s assault in Gaza has killed greater than 23,200 Palestinians, roughly 1% of the territory’s inhabitants, and greater than 58,000 folks have been wounded, in response to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. About two-thirds of the lifeless are girls and youngsters. The dying toll doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Throughout the evening and into Tuesday morning, warplanes struck a number of areas in and round Khan Younis and in central Gaza, the place 57 lifeless and dozens of wounded had been introduced into the principle hospital within the city of Deir al-Balah.
One strike late Monday hit a home in Deir al-Balah, killing the mom, three daughters and three small grandchildren of Jamal Naeim, a well known dentist in Gaza. Outside the hospital, Naeim cradled a small bundle of white fabric the dimensions of an toddler containing all that was left of certainly one of his grownup daughters, Shaimaa, who was additionally a dentist.
“This is Dr. Shaimaa, 27 years old. This is what we found of her, just the skin of her head and her hair,” he mentioned, breaking into sobs. Naeim is the brother of Bassem Naeim, a political determine in Hamas, however just isn’t a member of the group himself, residents mentioned.
Israeli troops have been pushing into a number of city refugee camps close to Deir al-Balah, preventing with defenders and pounding the densely constructed districts with heavy airstrikes and shelling. The camps had been constructed to deal with Palestinians pushed out of properties throughout the 1948 conflict surrounding Israel’s creation. Over time, the camps grew into cities.
Monday was one of many deadliest days but for Israeli troops in Gaza, with 9 killed, in response to the navy. Six of them died in a blast that went off when forces had been bringing explosives into an underground space in Bureij camp, apparently to explode Hamas tunnels, Israeli media reported.
The navy declined to remark. It says 185 troopers have been killed because the floor offensive started in late October.
Nearly 85% of Gaza’s inhabitants of two.3 million have been pushed from their properties by the preventing, and 1 / 4 of its residents face hunger, with solely a trickle of meals, water, drugs and different provides coming into by an Israeli siege.
The U.N. humanitarian workplace, referred to as OCHA, warned that the preventing was severely hampering help deliveries. Several warehouses, distribution facilities, well being amenities and shelters have been affected by the navy’s evacuation orders, it mentioned.
Some bakeries within the central metropolis of Deir al-Balah have been pressured to close down. A U.N. warehouse was hit final week, killing a staffer, and 5 different staffers had been detained by the navy, with two nonetheless held.
The state of affairs is much more dire in northern Gaza, which Israeli forces reduce off from the remainder of the territory in late October. Tens of hundreds of people that stay there face shortages of meals and water.
The World Health Organization has been unable to ship provides to the north for 2 weeks. OCHA mentioned the navy rejected 5 deliberate help convoys to the north over that interval, together with deliveries of medical provides and gas for water and sanitation amenities.
As Blinken arrived in Israel, exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah continued their spiral since final week’s killing of Hamas deputy chief Saleh Arouri in Beirut.
Hezbollah mentioned its drone strike on the bottom in northern Israel on Tuesday was additional retaliation for the killing of Arouri and of a senior Hezbollah commander in an Israeli bombing Monday.
On Tuesday morning, an Israeli drone hit a automobile in southern Lebanon, killing three folks inside, safety officers within the space and the state information company mentioned. There was no fast phrase on the identities of the three.
Israel has repeatedly warned that point is working out earlier than it launches a marketing campaign to finish militants’ hearth throughout the border.
U.S. officers have mentioned they count on Blinken’s discussions with Netanyahu, the War Cabinet and different officers to be a number of the most troublesome on his present Mideast tour, his fourth because the conflict started.
Blinken mentioned Monday that Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey agreed to start planning for the reconstruction and governance of Gaza as soon as Israel’s conflict in opposition to Hamas ends. Those nations beforehand resisted U.S. requires post-war planning to start, insisting that there should first be a cease-fire and a pointy discount within the civilian struggling in Gaza.
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Jobain reported reported from Rafah, Gaza Strip, and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.
Find extra of AP’s protection at: https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Source: www.bostonherald.com”