TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken faced difficult talks with Israeli leaders on Tuesday about Gaza's postwar future as the Israeli military pressed ahead with its offensive in the beleaguered territory. Heavy bombing and fighting rocked refugee camps, forcing Palestinians to flee to safety and hampering aid agencies' efforts to deliver aid to the population.
Blinken said he came to Israel with a promise from four Arab nations and Turkey to help rebuild Gaza after the war. But these nations also want to see an end to the fighting in Gaza and concrete steps toward the eventual creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed not to allow.
The US and Israel remain deeply divided over how Gaza should be administered when – and if – its current Hamas rulers are defeated. American officials have called on the Palestinian Authority, which currently governs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to take the reins in Gaza. Israel's leadership has rejected that idea but has not presented a concrete plan beyond indefinite military control of the area.
At the same time, Blinken is trying to prevent an all-out war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah. The two sides have intensified their exchanges after a suspected Israeli attack hit Beirut last week and killed the Hamas deputy leader. On Tuesday, Hezbollah said its exploding drones attacked the Israeli army's Northern Command in the city of Safed – deeper into Israel than previous shots by the group. The Israeli military said a drone crashed at a base in the north without causing damage, suggesting it had been intercepted. The base has not been identified.
“There is a lot to discuss, especially about the way forward,” Blinken said after a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
The United States has urged Israel to scale back its offensive in Gaza to more targeted operations against Hamas. But the pace of death and destruction has remained largely the same: according to health authorities in Gaza, several hundred Palestinians are killed every day. In response to the Oct. 7 attack in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped about 250 others in southern Israel, Israel has vowed to continue until Hamas is wiped out across the territory.
Nevertheless, after three months of fighting, Hamas continues to wage a bitter battle.
The Israeli military says it has dismantled Hamas infrastructure in northern Gaza, where large parts of the cityscape were destroyed. But the fight continues there against militants who Israel says are staying there. The focus of the offensive has shifted to the southern city of Khan Younis, where ground troops have been battling militants for weeks, as well as a number of urban refugee camps in central Gaza.
“The fighting will continue throughout 2024,” said military spokesman Daniel Hagari.
According to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, more than 23,200 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli assault on Gaza since the start of the war, about two-thirds of them women and children, and more than 58,000 have been injured. The death toll does not differentiate between combatants and civilians. Nearly 85% of Gaza's 2.3 million residents have been forced from their homes by the fighting and a quarter of residents are facing starvation, while the Israeli siege has allowed only a trickle of food, water, medicine and other supplies to enter the country.
Throughout the night and into Tuesday morning, warplanes attacked several areas in and around Khan Younis. Israeli artillery fire and gunfire echoed through the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, where troops were advancing from the north, a resident, Saeed Moustafa, said. They encountered fierce resistance from armed men in the camp, he said.
Like other refugee camps in Gaza, Nuseirat was built to house Palestinians forced from their homes during the war over the creation of Israel in 1948, and over the decades it was expanded into a densely populated city hosting refugees and their descendants were accommodated.
Families in Nuseirat's northern neighborhoods fled to other parts of the camp, Moustafa said by phone, as sporadic gunfire could be heard in the background. Some tried to drive south on Gaza's main north-south road, but found it blocked by Israeli tanks and turned back, he said. In leaflets, the military had told evacuees to use another road along the coast.
The U.N. humanitarian office, known as OCHA, warned that the fighting would significantly hamper aid deliveries. Several warehouses, distribution centers, health facilities and emergency shelters were affected by the military's evacuation orders, it said. Some bakeries in downtown Deir al-Balah had to close. Last week a UN warehouse was attacked, killing one employee. Five other employees were arrested by the military and two are still being held.
The situation is even worse in the northern Gaza Strip, which Israeli forces cut off from the rest of the territory at the end of October. Tens of thousands of people who remain there face food and water shortages.
The World Health Organization has been unable to deliver supplies to the north for two weeks. OCHA said the military rejected five attempted aid convoys to the north during this period, including planned deliveries of medical supplies and fuel for water and sanitation facilities.
As Blinken arrived in Israel, exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah were continuing since the killing of Hamas deputy leader Saleh Arouri in Beirut last week.
Hezbollah said its drone strike on the base in northern Israel on Tuesday was further retaliation for the killing of Arouri and a senior Hezbollah commander in an Israeli bombing on Monday.
An Israeli drone hit a car in southern Lebanon on Tuesday morning, killing three people inside, security officials in the region and the state news agency said. There was initially no information about the identity of the three.
Israel has repeatedly warned that time is running out before it launches a campaign to end militant fire across the border.
U.S. officials said they expect Blinken's talks with Netanyahu, the War Cabinet and other officials to be among the most difficult on his current Middle East tour, his fourth since the war began.
Blinken said Monday that Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey had agreed to begin planning for rebuilding and governing the Gaza Strip once Israel's war against Hamas ends. These countries had previously resisted US calls to begin post-war planning, insisting that there must first be a ceasefire and a drastic reduction in civilian suffering in Gaza.
Blinken did not provide details about possible contributions. Financial support and in-kind support from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia could be crucial to the success of any plan.
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Jobain reported from Rafah in the Gaza Strip and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.
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