RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The United States and Arab partners disagreed Saturday over the need for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, as Israeli military strikes killed several civilians at a U.N. shelter and a hospital in an intensifying assault on the besieged Hamas- Ruler of the enclave.
Large columns of smoke rose as the Israeli military said it had encircled Gaza City, the target of its offensive to crush Hamas. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 9,400 Palestinians have been killed in the area, and that number is expected to rise as the attack continues.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Arab foreign ministers in Jordan a day after talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. Netanyahu insisted there could be no temporary ceasefire until all hostages held by Hamas were released.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Arab countries wanted an immediate ceasefire, saying: “The entire region is drowning in a sea of hatred that will shape future generations.”
However, Blinken said, “We now believe that a ceasefire would simply leave Hamas in place and able to regroup and repeat what it did on October 7th.” He said, The US believes humanitarian pauses can be crucial to protecting civilians, bringing in aid and getting foreigners out, “while still allowing Israel to achieve its goal of defeating Hamas.”
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told reporters in Beirut that Blinken should “stop the aggression and not have ideas that cannot be implemented.”
Egyptian officials said they and Qatar would propose six to 12-hour daily humanitarian pauses to allow the evacuation of aid and the injured. They also demanded that Israel release a number of women and elderly prisoners in exchange for hostages held by Hamas. Proposals that Israel apparently will not accept. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the press on the discussions.
Israel has repeatedly called for the 1.1 million residents of the northern Gaza Strip to flee south as the bombardment of the north escalates. However, some of those who traveled south have been killed in recent days, and Israel continues to bomb the south and says it is attacking Hamas targets.
On Saturday, Israel offered trapped residents a three-hour window to escape south, but an AP journalist saw no one coming from the north along the way. The head of the government media office in Gaza, Salama Maarouf, said no one went south because the Israeli military damaged the road.
But Israel claimed that Hamas “exploited” the window to advance south and attack its forces. There was no immediate comment from Hamas on the claim, which could not be verified.
Some Palestinians said they did not go south for fear of Israeli bombing.
“We don’t trust them,” said Mohamed Abed, who sought refuge in the Shifa hospital compound with his wife and children.
Large parts of the residential areas in the north of the Gaza Strip were razed to the ground by air strikes. Most of the northern Gaza Strip’s remaining residents, estimated at around 300,000, have sought refuge in UN schools and hospitals. But these shelters have also been repeatedly hit and damaged by deadly Israeli attacks. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said it had lost contact with many people in the north.
According to the UN agency, there were two attacks on Saturday on a UN school converted into a shelter for thousands of people, north of Gaza City. Several people in tents in the schoolyard and women who were baking bread in the building were killed.
Initial reports said 20 people were killed, said spokeswoman Juliette Touma. The Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that 15 people were killed and another 70 injured at the school.
Two people were killed in a strike at the gate of Nasser Hospital in Gaza City on Saturday, according to Health Ministry spokesman Medhat Abbas. And a strike broke out near the entrance to the emergency room at Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, injuring at least 21 people, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.
The World Health Organization called attacks on health services in Gaza “unacceptable.”
According to the Hamas-run media office in Gaza, the family home of exiled Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the Shati refugee camp on the northern edge of Gaza City was also hit. There was no immediate information on damage or casualties.
In the southern Gaza Strip, an airstrike destroyed a family’s home in the town of Khan Younis early Saturday, with first responders pulling three bodies and six injured people from the rubble.
A child was among those killed, according to an Associated Press cameraman at the scene.
“The noise of the explosions never stops,” said Raed Mattar, who sought refuge in a school in Khan Younis after fleeing the north.
The Israeli military said its ground forces were also deployed in the south, with a tank and engineer corps working to remove booby traps from buildings.
According to the United Nations, about 1.5 million people in Gaza, or 70% of the population, have fled their homes.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sits aboard the aircraft during his visit to Israel as he departs for Jordan, Friday, Nov. 3, 2023. Blinken is in Israel to push for more humanitarian aid to be allowed into the besieged Gaza Strip. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP)
Food, water and fuel for generators that power hospitals and other facilities are running low. Aid trucks allowed into Gaza in recent days contained far more body bags than canned goods, said Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Rafah border crossing, the enclave’s only gateway to the outside world.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an immediate ceasefire late Friday, calling the humanitarian situation in Gaza “terrible.”
He also called on Hamas to release all of the approximately 240 hostages.
Some hostage families set up camp in Tel Aviv on Saturday.
“I want my army to put as much pressure as possible on Hamas and not give them a second of peace until our sons, our fathers, our mothers, grandmothers and grandfathers are back home,” said one father, Alex Sherman.
Anger over the war and the deaths of civilians in Gaza sparked large demonstrations in Paris, London, Pakistan and elsewhere on Saturday. “Against apartheid, free Palestinians,” read a banner in Rome.
Turkey said it would recall its ambassador to Israel for consultations, and Turkish media reported that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he could no longer speak to Netanyahu in light of the bombing.
Fears of a new opening of the front along Israel’s border with Lebanon continued. The Israeli military said it struck militant cells in Lebanon that tried to fire on Israel, as well as an observation post belonging to Hezbollah, a Hamas ally. Firefights between Israel and Hezbollah occurred almost daily along the border throughout the war.
“We are not interested in a northern front, but we are prepared for any task,” said Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant after a tour of the northern border. He said the air force “reserves most of its power for the front line in Lebanon,” according to a video statement released by his office on Saturday.
More than 3,900 Palestinian children were among the Palestinians killed in Gaza, the Gaza Strip Health Ministry said, without providing a breakdown of the number of civilians and fighters.
More than 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed in Hamas’ initial attack. Since the ground operation began, 24 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza.
At least 1,115 Palestinian dual citizens and wounded have left Gaza for Egypt.
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Mroue reported from Beirut and Anna from New York. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Amman, Jordan; Samy Magdy in Cairo; Julia Frankel and Isabel DeBre in Jerusalem; and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this story.
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Complete AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war