US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet Arab envoys in Jordan on Saturday as fierce fighting rages between Israeli forces and Hamas militants on the outskirts of Gaza City.
Fighting picked up pace after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday rejected a U.S. plea for a “humanitarian pause” to allow more aid into the blockaded enclave.
After meeting with Blinken, who called on Israel to do more to “protect Palestinian civilians,” Netanyahu conditioned any temporary ceasefire on the unconditional release of the 242 hostages still held by Hamas.
Blinken meets Arab diplomats, including from Egypt and Jordan, who are angry about the severity of the Israeli bombing and fear the violence could spark a wider conflict.
Palestinians reported a night of intense air and artillery attacks, including in southern Gaza, where the IDF confirmed it had been operating.
Amman withdrew its ambassador from Israel this week and condemned the “killing of innocent civilians.” . . and a severe and unprecedented humanitarian disaster.”
Cairo, meanwhile, fears that Israel will try to use its war with Hamas to drive Palestinians from Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula.
Saturday’s meeting will ask Blinken to reorient U.S. diplomacy and press Israel to agree to a ceasefire and curb extremist settler violence in the occupied West Bank, an Arab diplomat said.
The diplomat added that Arab leaders would aim to convince Blinken of the urgent need for a “political horizon for the day after” the war ends.
“This is more or less a brainstorming meeting, bringing together the main parties in the region with the US to find a way forward,” the diplomat said. “The best solution is a political solution [to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict]yesterday, not today.”
International efforts to bring more aid to the enclave while creating conditions for the release of Hamas hostages, many of them women, children and the elderly, were gaining momentum, but no breakthrough was in sight.
A senior US government official said intensive talks to release 242 hostages in Gaza were continuing, including through indirect contacts with Hamas.
The official added that the Oct. 20 release of two American hostages – a mother and her teenage daughter – was a test run to see whether the hostage discussion channel, which includes Qatar and Egypt, was feasible and whether the parties could achieve a break in the fights for their release.
“The discussions were intensive, detailed, we proved that it is possible and . . . we are hopeful. . .[but]There is no guarantee,” the official said.
Hamas is demanding a ceasefire, more aid to Palestinian civilians and fuel for the Strip in return for the release of civilians. At the same time, it intends to keep the captured Israeli soldiers in order to exchange them for more than 6,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Fighting overnight included “hand-to-hand combat” between Israeli troops and Hamas militants, as well as at least one Israeli airstrike on an ambulance convoy en route to Al-Shifa Hospital, where thousands of civilians have sought refuge, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The Israeli military said the convoy “was used by a Hamas operative” and claimed that several Hamas militants were killed. Videos from the scene showed dead and injured civilians, including women and children, as well as a woman lying on a stretcher in an ambulance.
A second explosion followed, affecting the remaining four ambulances near Al-Shifa hospital, Palestinian health authorities said. At least a dozen deaths were seen in videos from the crime scene. The entrance to the hospital is usually crowded with civilians seeking refuge and television crews.
“The images of bodies scattered on the street outside the hospital are shocking,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, repeating calls for an immediate ceasefire. “An entire population is traumatized, nowhere is safe.”
Blinken is in Amman to meet Arab diplomats from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the Palestinian Authority, a rival to Hamas.
Aid convoys from Egypt to Gaza remained at a fraction of prewar levels, with Israeli security forces checking the contents of each truck before it was allowed into the enclave.
According to an Israeli Defense Ministry document obtained by the Financial Times, 410 trucks have entered the strip since hostilities began on October 7, 36 of them on Friday. More than 400 trucks entered the enclave daily before the fighting began.
Israel blamed the delays on “logistical difficulties faced by the organizations responsible for receiving humanitarian aid” and claimed there was enough food and water in the “short term.”
International organizations including the UN have documented a widespread humanitarian crisis, and Tom White, the Gaza director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on Friday that the average Gaza resident now survives on two pieces of bread a day live and beg for clean water.
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Israel is considering a proposal to establish a maritime humanitarian corridor and send aid to Cyprus, which would be reviewed by Israeli officials. The aid would then be delivered to a small port in Gaza, two people familiar with the talks said. The port was damaged by Israeli attacks.
The setup would take a long time, a senior U.N. official said, and involves Israel’s requirement that international monitors in Gaza “keep an eye on” every truck from entry to distribution.
Around 9,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7, when Israel launched an airstrike followed by a ground invasion a week ago, local health authorities said. A US official said Israel could reduce the intensity of its airstrikes by shifting to a “tactical focus on ground combat.”
Israeli authorities said at least 1,400 Israelis were killed in Hamas’ cross-border raid, including 314 soldiers and civilians. 27 soldiers were killed by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.