Blinken urges planning for post-war Gaza
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks in Israel yesterday as he seeks a plan for Gaza’s post-war future.
The talks came as Israel’s military pushed ahead with its offensive in the beleaguered territory.
Heavy bombardment and fighting shook refugee camps, sending Palestinians scrambling to find safety and hampering aid groups’ efforts to deliver relief to the population.
And in southern Lebanon an Israeli drone strike hit a car yesterday morning, killing three people inside it, the state news agency said. The strike on Ghandouriyeh, about 10km from the border with Israel, came a day after a similar attack killed a commander with the militant Hezbollah group.
Hezbollah said yesterday that its exploding drones targeted the Israeli army northern command in the town of Safed – deeper into Israel than previous fire by the group.
The Israeli military said a drone fell at a base in the north without causing damage, suggesting it had been intercepted. It did not identify the base.
Mr Blinken arrived in Israel after saying he had secured commitments from four Arab nations and Turkey to help in rebuilding Gaza after the war, something they had been reluctant to promise before a stop in fighting.
But the US and Israel remain deeply divided over how Gaza will be run when – and if – its current Hamas rulers are defeated.
US officials have called for the Palestinian Authority, which currently governs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to take over in Gaza and for negotiations to resume on the creation of a Palestinian state.
Israeli leaders have staunchly refused both.
Mr Blinken is also trying to prevent the conflict from spreading after an escalation in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and threats by Israel to step up its military action to put an end to almost daily fire across the border from Lebanon by the militant group.
“There is lots to talk about, in particular about the way forward,” Mr Blinken said after meeting Israeli president Isaac Herzog.
The US has pressed Israel to scale down its offensive in Gaza to more precise operations targeting Hamas.
But the pace of death and destruction has remained largely the same, with several hundred Palestinians killed each day, according to health officials in Gaza.
Israel has vowed to keep going until it has destroyed Hamas throughout the territory, in response to the October 7 attack during which militants killed some 1,200 people, mainly civilians, in southern Israel and kidnapped around 250 others.
After three months of fighting, Hamas has continued to put up a fierce resistance.
The Israeli military says it has dismantled Hamas infrastructure in northern Gaza, where large swaths of the cityscape have been demolished. But fighting continues there against what Israel says are pockets of militants.
“The fighting will continue throughout 2024,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari said.