Gaza conflict runs risk of metastasizing, Blinken warns
- The top U.S. diplomat swept through the Middle East on Sunday, warning that the Gaza conflict could spread across the region without concerted peace efforts, although Israel’s leader vowed to continue the war until Hamas was eliminated.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, at the start of a five-day trip in the region, also sought to assure Arab leaders that Washington opposes the forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza or the occupied West Bank.
“This is a moment of profound tension for the region. This is a conflict that could easily metastasize, causing even more insecurity and suffering,” Blinken said at a press conference in Doha. He was in Jordan and Qatar on Sunday before landing in the United Arab Emirates for talks on Monday. He will then visit Saudi Arabia, Israel, the West Bank and Egypt.
Jordan’s King Abdullah urged Blinken to use Washington’s influence over Israel to press it for an immediate ceasefire, a palace statement said, warning of the “catastrophic repercussions” of Israel’s continued military campaign.
Despite global concern over the death and destruction in Gaza and widespread calls for a ceasefire, Israeli public opinion remains firmly behind the operation aimed at wiping out the Hamas group that rules Gaza, although support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fallen sharply.
Netanyahu has vowed to press on with the retaliatory action.
“The war must not be stopped until we achieve all the goals the elimination of Hamas, the return of all our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel,” Netanyahu said at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday. “I say this to both our enemies and our friends.”
Some 1,200 people were killed and 240 were taken hostage in Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, according to Israeli officials. More than 100 hostages are still believed to be held by Hamas.
For Israelis, the deadliest day in the country’s history and the accounts of atrocities that later emerged left a sense that its survival is at stake.
Israel’s offensive has so far killed 22,835 Palestinians in Gaza, after 111 dead and 250 wounded were added to the tally over the past 24 hours, Palestinian health officials said on Sunday.
An Israeli air strike on a car near Rafah in southern Gaza on Sunday killed two Palestinian journalists, according to health officials in Gaza and the journalists’ union there.
Central Gaza has been the focus of a heavier Israeli ground and air offensive in the past two weeks, with residents there reporting tank shelling east of the area as explosions lit the skies overnight on Sunday. Palestinians in southern Gaza Strip said Israeli air strikes pummelled the area east of Khan Younis and Rafah.
Israel denies targeting civilians and says Hamas militants deliberately embed themselves
among civilian populations. Hamas, which is backed by Iran and is sworn to Israel’s destruction, denies that.
The fighting has displaced most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population, with many homes and civilian infrastructure left in
ruins amid acute shortages of food, water and medicine.
“We hope that ... Blinken looks at us with an eye of mercy, ends the war, ends the misery we are living in,” Um Mohamad AlArqan said, as she stood by the tent where she is living.