US are keen to revive talks on Gaza plan after visit cancelled

Netanyahu insists decision should be considered as a warning after latest UN vote called for ceasefire

Talks have restarted aimed at bringing top Israeli officials to Washington to discuss potential military operations in Gaza, after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled a planned visit this week because he was angry about the US vote on a UN ceasefire resolution, the White House said.

“We’re now working with them to find a convenient date that’s obviously going to work for both sides,” said press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

No date has been finalised yet. One US official said strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer and national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi would be among the delegation to come to Washington.

An Israeli official said the White House had reached out with the goal of setting a new meeting.

The prime minister canceled the trip this week after the UN vote to demand a ceasefire in Hamas-run Gaza; the US abstained from the vote but did not veto it.

Mr Netanyahu accused the US of “retreating” from a “principled position” by allowing the resolution to pass without conditioning the ceasefire on the release of hostages held by Hamas.

The delegation to the US was meant to discuss a promised ground invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which is overflowing with displaced civilians. Israel has so far rejected American appeals to call off the planned operation.

Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant was already in Washington by the time Mr Netanyahu cancelled the trip by other officials. Mr Gallant met with US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, secretary of state Antony Blinken and defence secretary Lloyd Austin. The Gaza operation was one of many topics they discussed.

Mr Netanyahu said on Wednesday his decision to cancel was meant to deliver a message to Hamas that international pressure against Israel will not prompt it to end the war without concessions from the militant group, an apparent attempt to smooth over the clash between the allies.

Speaking to visiting Republican senator Rick Scott, Mr Netanyahu said the cancelled visit “was a message first and foremost to Hamas: Don’t bet on this pressure, it’s not going to work”.

Mr Netanyahu said the US abstention on the UN vote was “very, very bad,” and that it “encouraged Hamas to take a hard line and to believe that international pressure will prevent Israel” from achieving its war aims.

Israel wants to destroy Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and free the hostages taken bythe militant group during its October7 attack against Israel.

The US abstention and Mr Netanyahu’s subsequent decision to cancel the delegation represented the strongest public dispute between the two allies since the war in Gaza began.

Meanwhile, the death toll from Israeli airstrikes across southern Lebanon has climbed to 16, including several militants and members of paramedic groups, according to Lebanese state media and the militant organisations.

And in northern Israel, one man was killed by a barrage of at least 30 rockets fired by Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which said it was responding to a deadly airstrike targeting a paramedic centre linked to a Sunni Muslim group.

International mediators have been scrambling to prevent an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah amid near-daily violence, mostly confined to the area along the Lebanon-Israel border. Hezbollah has been launching rockets toward Israel since October 8, the day after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, triggering the war in Gaza.

More than 32,000 people have been killed in Gaza and 74,000 wounded, according to the health ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its tally. The ministry says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.

Two-thirds of Gaza’s 36hospitals aren’t functioning after Al Amal Hospital in the south of the territory ceased operation amid intense military activity, UN humanitarian officials report.

According to the World Health Organisation, Gaza now has just 12 operating hospitals – two that are “minimally functional” and 10 that are partially functional, four in the north and six in the south, said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

More than two dozen staff, six patients and a companion and the bodies of two people killed inside Al Amal were moved on Monday by the UN humanitarian office, the Palestine Red Crescent Society and the International Committee for the Red Cross before the hospital was closed on Tuesday, said Mr Dujarric.

Andrea De Domenico, the head of UN humanitarian operations in the Palestinian territories, visited the partially functioning Kamal Adwan hospital in the north last week and reported that it is receiving “about 15 malnourished children a dayand is struggling to maintain services,” said Mr Dujarric.

“The hospital’s only generator has been heavily damaged, and health workers and patients desperately need food, water and sanitation assistance,” he added.

‘It’s the strongest public dispute between the two allies since the war in Gaza began’