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- Pope calls for “stopping in the name of God” and calls for humanitarian aid for Gaza
- Qatar’s Foreign Ministry says mediators will not be able to secure the release of Israeli hostages without a “period of calm.”
GAZA/RAMALLAH, Nov 5 (Portal) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for an immediate Israeli ceasefire at a meeting with top U.S. diplomat Antony Blinken on Sunday, as Gaza’s health ministry said dozens of people were killed in an attack on a refugee camp overnight were killed.
Blinken, who has repeatedly rejected the idea of a ceasefire by Israel out of fear it would benefit Hamas, made an unannounced visit to the occupied West Bank to ensure that the war between Israel and Hamas does not expand in the region.
His visit to Ramallah came as people in Gaza’s Maghazi refugee camp searched through rubble for victims or survivors.
“All night long, I and the other men tried to pick up the dead from the rubble. We have children, cut up, torn flesh,” said Saeed al-Nejma, 53, adding that he slept with his family in their family home. One-story house when the explosion hit its neighborhood.
A health ministry spokesman in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip said earlier Sunday that the Israeli military attacked the camp overnight, killing at least 47 people.
In a separate attack, 21 Palestinians from a family, including women and children, were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza overnight, the health ministry said.
Portal could not independently verify these accounts.
‘NO WORDS’
“We demand that you immediately stop them from committing these crimes,” Abbas told Blinken, calling for an “immediate ceasefire” from Israel.
“There are no words to describe the war of genocide and destruction that our Palestinian people in Gaza are being subjected to by the Israeli war machine, without regard to the rules of international law,” the Palestinian news agency WAFA quoted Abbas Blinken as tellingly.
Foreign ministers from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates met Blinken in Amman on Saturday and also pushed for Washington to persuade Israel to agree to a ceasefire.
Pope Francis joined calls for peace. “Stop in the name of God,” he said on Sunday, calling for humanitarian aid and help for the injured to ease the “very serious” situation in Gaza.
But Blinken said a ceasefire would benefit Hamas and allow it to regroup and attack again. Instead, the United States is pushing for local pauses in fighting to allow humanitarian assistance and encourage people to leave the densely populated Gaza Strip.
“The secretary reiterated the United States’ commitment to providing life-saving humanitarian assistance and resuming essential services in Gaza,” said spokesman Matthew Miller.
Abbas has had little influence over Gaza since Hamas took over the enclave in 2007.
Israel says it is targeting Hamas, not civilians, and that the Palestinian Islamist group is using residents as human shields.
Gaza health officials said on Sunday that more than 9,770 Palestinians have been killed in the war that began when Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 240 others hostage.
The evacuation of injured Gazans and foreign passport holders through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt has been suspended since Saturday, two Egyptian security sources and a medical source told Portal.
One of the security sources and the medical source said evacuations had been suspended following an Israeli attack on Friday on an ambulance in Gaza used to transport injured people.
MORE STRIKES
Israel continued its air, sea and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip overnight.
[1/20]A Palestinian reacts as people search for victims at the site of Israeli attacks on houses, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the Magazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, November 5, 2023. Portal/ Mohammed Salem LICENSES
Gaza health officials said Israeli airstrikes destroyed a cluster of homes in the Maghazi refugee camp. Reached for comment, the Israeli military said it was waiting and gathering details.
Mohammad Al-Aloul, a photographer for Turkey’s Anadolu News Agency, said he lost his four children, four of his brothers and their children in the strike that destroyed his home.
“I arrived at the hospital and learned that my four children, including my only daughter, had been martyred,” Al-Aloul told Portal.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said there were also heavy bombardments, heavy artillery explosions and airstrikes near Al-Quds Hospital in the Tal Al-Hawa area of Gaza.
U.S. special envoy David Satterfield said in Amman on Saturday that 800,000 to 1 million people had moved south, while 350,000 to 400,000 remained in and around Gaza City.
Living conditions in Gaza, already terrible before the war, have worsened. Food is scarce, residents drink salty water and medical care is collapsing.
The UN humanitarian office estimates that nearly 1.5 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are internally displaced.
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said that without a “period of calm” in Gaza, its mediators would be unable to secure the release of Israeli hostages held in the enclave.
Since the October 7 attack, the Gulf state has held mediation talks with Hamas and Israeli representatives over the release of hostages in coordination with the United States.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday disciplined a young member of his cabinet who had openly expressed support for the idea of an Israeli nuclear attack on Gaza.
Violence in the West Bank is increasing
Meanwhile, increasing violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has fueled concerns that the Palestinian territory, considered a flashpoint, could become a third front in a larger war, in addition to Israel’s northern border, where there have been clashes with Lebanese Hezbollah forces .
Israeli police were shot at by a gunman during a raid in Abu Dis, a Palestinian village near Jerusalem, killing him, a police spokesman said.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said three Palestinians were killed in the incident, which it described as clashes with Israeli forces. Another Palestinian was killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank city of Hebron, the ministry said. The Israeli military did not initially comment on this.
Blinken and Abbas “discussed efforts to restore calm and stability in the West Bank, including the need to stop extremist violence against Palestinians and hold those responsible accountable,” spokesman Miller said.
This year has already been the deadliest year for West Bank residents in at least 15 years, according to UN data. About 200 Palestinians and 26 Israelis were killed. Since the war in Gaza began, 121 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank.
PROTESTS
Israel’s attack and siege have sparked global concerns about humanitarian conditions in the narrow coastal enclave.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protested in cities including London, Berlin, Paris, Istanbul and Jakarta on Saturday, demanding a ceasefire. Tens of thousands gathered in Washington to denounce President Joe Biden’s war policies and call for a ceasefire.
In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi reiterated the government’s support for the Palestinian people’s struggle to tens of thousands in Jakarta.
The country’s defense minister was quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Sunday as saying Iran would “hit hard” if Washington did not enforce a ceasefire in Gaza.
Blinken will visit Turkey on Monday for talks on the conflict, continuing his second trip to the region since the conflict flared up.
Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Ali Sawafta and Simon Lewis in Ramallah, Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Additional reporting by Clauda Tanos; writing by Michael Perry and Ingrid Melander; Edited by William Mallard, Alexander Smith and Conor Humphries
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