- LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
- Russia’s Putin warns that the conflict could spread beyond the Middle East
- Palestinians bury unknown dead in mass graves
GAZA/JERUSALEM, Oct 26 (Portal) – Israel bombed Hamas targets as it prepared for a ground invasion. Russia warned the conflict could spread beyond the Middle East and world powers failed to secure plans to deliver vital humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip.
Looking beyond the war that began with an attack on Israel by Palestinian Hamas militants, US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that the future should include Israeli and Palestinian states side by side.
“Israelis and Palestinians alike deserve to live side by side in security, dignity and peace,” Biden said at a joint news conference in Washington with visiting Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Biden said he believes one reason the Islamist group Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostages of various nationalities, was to prevent normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the conflict could spread beyond the Middle East and said it was wrong that innocent women, children and the elderly in Gaza were being punished for other people’s crimes.
“Our task today, our main task, is to stop the bloodshed and violence,” Putin said at a meeting with Russian religious leaders of various faiths, according to a Kremlin transcript.
“Otherwise, further escalation of the crisis is fraught with serious, extremely dangerous and destructive consequences. And not just for the Middle East region. It could reach far beyond the borders of the Middle East.”
Reflecting concerns that the Gaza war could expand, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel had agreed to delay the invasion of Gaza until U.S. air defense systems could be deployed to the region as early as this week to deal with the to protect American forces.
Asked about the report, U.S. officials told Portal that Washington had expressed concerns to Israel that Iran and Iran-backed Islamist groups could escalate the conflict by attacking U.S. troops in the Middle East. An Israeli incursion into Gaza could be a trigger for Iranian proxies, they said.
The war in Gaza has already sparked conflict outside the Palestinian territories. Israeli warplanes attacked Syrian army infrastructure on Wednesday in response to missile attacks from Syria, an ally of Iran. Israel has also targeted Syria’s Aleppo airport and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Iran, Israel’s archenemy, has sought regional dominance for decades and has supported armed groups in Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere, as well as Hamas. It has warned Israel to stop its attack on Gaza.
Aid proposals fail in votes in the UN Security Council
At the United Nations, Russia and China vetoed a U.S.-drafted Security Council resolution calling for a pause in hostilities to allow the delivery of food, water and medicine to Palestinian civilians. The United Arab Emirates also voted no, while ten members voted in favor and two abstained.
Russia put forward a counterproposal advocating a broader ceasefire, but failed to win the minimum number of votes. Israel has opposed both, arguing that Hamas would only take advantage and create new threats to civilians in the Gaza Strip.
As the death toll rises in Gaza, Palestinians are burying the unidentified dead in mass graves, with a number instead of a name, residents say.
Some families use bracelets in the hope of finding their loved ones if they are killed.
More than 6,500 people were killed in Israeli retaliatory strikes, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday in Hamas-controlled territory. Portal was unable to independently verify casualty figures from either side.
Biden said Wednesday he has “no confidence in the number the Palestinians are using for the death toll,” but did not say why he was skeptical.
In the US, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it was “deeply disturbed” by Biden’s comments on the Gaza numbers and called on the president to apologize.
INVASION PREPARATION
Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas, which rules Gaza.
“We will continue to strike in Gaza to achieve the war goals,” said Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari. “Every attack strengthens us and improves our situation ahead of the next phases of the war.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised statement that Israel was “preparing for a ground invasion. I won’t go into detail about when, how or how many.”
Israeli tanks and troops are gathered on the Gaza border awaiting orders. Israel has called up 360,000 reservists.
International pressure to delay an invasion of Gaza is growing, not least because of the hostages. More than half of the estimated 220 hostages held by Hamas have foreign passports from 25 different countries, the Israeli government said. Many of them were believed to have dual Israeli citizenship.
Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Henrietta Chacar, Emily Rose, Jeff Mason, Phil Stewart and Michelle Nichols; writing by Grant McCool and Michael Perry; Edited by Howard Goller and Stephen Coates
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