Blinken meets with Israeli leaders as Middle East trip ends

TEL AVIV, Israel — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s latest round of Middle East diplomacy ended on Thursday with a meeting with Israel’s war Cabinet, but he leaves the region deprived of a deal for a truce in Gaza that would have allowed for the return of hostages.

The top U.S. diplomat, who was on his fifth trip to the Middle East since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted, said at the meeting with Cabinet officials that the focus was on the hostages and “the strong desire” both the U.S. and Israel have “to see them returned to their families.”

Blinken also informed war Cabinet members Benny Gantz and Gabi Eisenkot — both of whom have held top military posts — about his talks in the region over the past several days, the Israeli broadcaster Kan said in its report on the meeting.

His shuttle diplomacy included stops in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the West Bank. But his efforts to secure an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas were unsuccessful.

The tensions between the U.S. and Israeli government were on full display on Wednesday, when Blinken called on Israel to moderate its ground and air campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

He said the massacre Israel suffered at the hands of Hamas and other extremists on October 7 should not be used as a “license to dehumanize others.”

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed his government’s hard line, saying the only way to get the hostages released was to keep up the major military pressure on Hamas.

Netanyahu, snubbing any truce-for-hostage deal with Hamas, said he was convinced that a “total victory” over the terrorist organization is possible within a few months.

Of around 136 hostages still held by Hamas, the military’s public estimate is that at most just over 100 are still alive.

But the New York Times and others, citing confidential intelligence assessments, have reported the number of hostages killed is probably higher.

Fighting continues to rage in the Gaza Strip, where the Hamas-controlled health authority said on Thursday another 130 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks within 24 hours.

Since the beginning of the war on October 7, the number of people killed in the coastal strip has risen to at least 27,840, with another 67,300 injured.

The Israeli army reported fresh heavy fighting in the west of the city of Khan Younis in the south of Gaza. It said dozens of terror suspects were in the fighting and dozens more were taken into custody.

According to the Gaza health authorities, 14 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes overnight in Rafah, at the southernmost tip of the strip.

The U.N. says more than 1 million people are now living in dire conditions in the city directly on the border with Egypt.

The Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance service said on Thursday that one paramedic had been killed and two others injured by Israeli fire.

The war was triggered by the worst massacre in Israel’s history, in which more than 1,200 people were killed on October 7 at the hands of militants from Gaza.

Israel says 228 servicemen and women have been killed since the start of the Israeli ground offensive in Gaza at the end of October.

There were renewed rocket alerts in the Israeli border towns with the Gaza Strip on Thursday.