TG4 TV PC to TV
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has renewed calls for Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal, as he started talks with Israel’s leadership.
“Even in these very difficult times we are determined to get a ceasefire that brings the hostages home – and to get it now,” Mr Blinken said as he met Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
“And the only reason that that wouldn’t be achieved is because of Hamas,” he added.
It comes as the United Nations warned yesterday that an Israeli assault on Rafah in the Gaza Strip was “on the immediate horizon” and that “incremental” progress by Israel on aid access to the enclave could not be used to prepare for or justify an operation.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for states with influence over Israel “to do everything in their power” to prevent an Israeli assault on Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than 1.2 million displaced Gaza Palestinians are sheltering.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed yesterday to go ahead with a long-promised assault, whatever the response by Hamas to latest proposals for a halt to fighting in the nearly seven-month-long war and a return of Israeli hostages.
“The world has been appealing to the Israeli authorities for weeks to spare Rafah, but a ground operation there is on the immediate horizon,” said UN aid chief Martin Griffiths in a statement.
“The simplest truth is that a ground operation in Rafah will be nothing short of a tragedy beyond words.”
conflict on 7 October when Hamas attacked Israel
Mr Blinken kicked off a series of meetings with Israeli leaders discussing how to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza while at the same time repeatedly urged Palestinian militant Hamas to accept a deal offer that will release hostages and achieve a ceasefire.
Following visits to Riyadh and Amman earlier this week, the top US diplomat is now in Israel for the final stop of his wider Middle East tour.
Mr Blinken’s visit is his seventh to the region which was plunged into conflict on 7 October when Hamas attacked Israel.
His top priority in Israel will be to push the Israeli government to take a set of specific steps so that improvements in the humanitarian aid flow into the densely populated enclave.
“Even as we’re working with relentless determination to get the ceasefire that brings the hostages home, we also have to be focused on people in Gaza for suffering in this crossfire of Hamas’ making,” Mr Blinken said in remarks at the start of his meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv.
“Focused on getting them the assistance they need, the food, and medicine, the water or shelter is also very much on our minds,” he said.
Hamas killed 1,200 people and abducting 250 others in its 7 October assault on Israel, according to Israeli tallies.
In response, Israel has launched a relentless assault on Gaza, killing more than 34,000 Palestinians, local health authorities say, in a bombardment that has reduced the enclave to a wasteland.
More than one million people face famine after six months of war, the UN has said.
It has also sparked the biggest outpouring of student activism in the US since the anti-racism protests of 2020.
Police in New York City have raided Columbia University and arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, some of whom had seized an academic building.
Mr Blinken’s check-in with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on aid will take place about a month after US President Joe Biden issued a stark warning to him, saying Washington’s policy could shift if Israel fails to take steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.
Mr Biden has threatened to condition support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza on it taking concrete steps to protect aid workers and civilians, seeking for the first time to leverage US aid to influence Israeli military behaviour.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said yesterday there had been incremental progress toward averting “an entirely preventable, human-made famine” in the northern Gaza Strip, but called on Israel to do more.
Source link
