Zionists keep bombing Gaza
Nearly 150 killed in 24 hours • Blinken meets Palestinian leader, Bahraini King
GAZA: US top diplomat Antony Blinken on Wednesday met the head of the Palestinian Authority and travelled to Bahrain on his Middle East tour aimed at stopping the Zionist-Hamas war from escalating. The Zionist military said it killed dozens of Palestinians and hit another 150 targets in Hamas-run Gaza, where the health ministry said 147 people had been killed over the previous 24 hours.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas spoke with Blinken of the need “to stop the (Zionist) aggression against Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank”, which has also been torn by deadly unrest, said the official Palestinian news agency Wafa. Blinken told Abbas that Washington supports “tangible steps” towards the creation of a Palestinian state — a long-term goal which the hard-right Zionist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has opposed.
The secretary of state reiterated the US position that a Palestinian state must stand alongside the Zionist entity, “with both living in peace and security”, said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. As Blinken arrived under tight security at Abbas’ headquarters in Ramallah, a group of protesters held up signs that read “Stop the genocide”, “Free Palestine” and “Blinken out”. Some scuffled with Palestinian security forces in riot gear.
Abbas was later set to discuss a “push for an immediate ceasefire” in Gaza in talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi in the Red Sea port city of Aqaba. Blinken later arrived in the Gulf state of Bahrain, home base of the US Fifth Fleet, for talks with King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa on preventing a regional escalation of the war, the State Department said.
The Zionist entity’s relentless military campaign has killed at least 23,357 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry. The Zionist army says 186 of its soldiers have been killed inside Gaza in its campaign to destroy Hamas. The United Nations estimates 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced inside the territory that had already endured years of blockade and poverty before the war.
Global concern has flared over Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, and Blinken — while voicing continued US support for top regional ally the Zionist entity — has urged steps to reduce the suffering. Dire shortages brought by a Zionist siege mean the “daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly children, is far too high”, Blinken said on Tuesday after talks with Netanyahu. Blinken called for “more food, more water, more medicine” for Gaza, where only limited relief supplies have arrived.
Desperate Gazans on Tuesday climbed onto one truck carrying flour and canned goods and tossed the food to the crowd below, AFP footage showed. Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said the Zionist entity is “ready and willing to facilitate as much humanitarian aid as the world will give”.
The war raged on unabated and the army reported more deadly fighting in Gaza’s central Maghazi and southern Khan Yunis areas. One of the many displaced Palestinians, Hassan Kaskin, 55, told AFP: “We have lost our money, our houses, our jobs. We are losing our youths as well. We’ve sacrificed our children for our homeland.”
Blinken is on his fourth tour of the Middle East since the outbreak of the war, and was due to head to Egypt, after earlier stops in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Washington has floated a post-war scenario in which a reformed Palestinian Authority governs Gaza as well as towns and cities in the West Bank, which the Zionist entity has occupied since 1967.
A post-war plan outlined by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant envisions local “civil committees” governing Gaza after the Zionist entity has dismantled Hamas. Hamas, an Islamist movement, seized sole control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, ousting Abbas’ Fatah party, with which it had shared power after sweeping parliamentary elections. Hamas’ Qatar-based chief Ismail Haniyeh said last week he was “open to the idea” of a single Palestinian administration in Gaza and the West Bank. — AFP