Hezbollah fires rockets at Israel after the Hamas leader’s death
The Cross-Border War Between Israel and the Lebanese Army During Blinken’s Embedding in the Middle East
On the trip, there will be stops in Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Blinken will visit Israel and the West Bank next week before wrapping up the trip in Egypt.
So far, Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that supports Hamas, has held back from escalating fighting with Israel. They have launched missile and rocket attacks at Israel, but these have been contained to areas near the border.
The cross-border escalation came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was kicking off an urgent Middle East diplomatic tour, his fourth to the region since the Israel-Hamas war erupted three months ago. The war was started when Hamas killed 1200 people and took 250 hostages in southern Israel.
There is no end to the war in sight even though there have been signs of discontent at home. According to Israeli officials, around 1,200 people were killed in an attack on southern Israel on October 7th, and more than twenty-four people were kidnapped. There are about 100 people in Gaza that are still being held hostage.
In the southern city of Khan Younis, the focus of Israel’s ground offensive, the local European Hospital received the bodies of 18 people killed in an overnight airstrike on a house in the city’s Maan neighborhood, said Saleh al-Hamms, head of the nursing department at the hospital. He said that more than 30 people had been sheltered in the house, including some who were displaced, when it was hit.
Israel has held Hamas responsible for civilian casualties, saying the group has embedded within in Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. The international criticism of Israel’s conduct during the war has grown more persistent because of the rising civilian death toll. The United States has urged Israel to do more to prevent harm to civilians, even as it keeps sending weapons and munitions, while shielding its close ally against international censure.
Israel’s response to a Palestinian attack on the Gazan border: Implications for peace and stability in the region, and a warning from Israel
From Turkey, Tony Blinken will travel to a NATO ally in Greece to meet the prime minister. The U.S. is making efforts to stop the war in Israel from spreading, and the government is willing to assist should the situation get worse.
With the campaign in Gaza far from over, the prospect of a wider war hung over the region in the past week. A senior Hamas leader was killed in a strike in Lebanon that US and other officials say was the work of Israel. The Israeli government has not taken blame for the killing of the Hamas leader.
The proposal from Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Mr. Netanyahu came last week, and was the first sign that Israel would end the war. The plan is unclear how much support it has, and it seems to straddle the demands of the far more conservative members of the government and the United States.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said late Saturday at a news conference that the Hamas fighters were limited in their ability to damage northern Gaza and that they no longer worked under an organized military command. Details about control in the north and how the military operation would be different were not given by Hagari.
Displaced Palestinians carrying bags of wood at a makeshift tent camp in the Muwasi area, southern Gaza, last week. Most of the residents of Gaza were displaced by the bombarding of the enclave by Israel.
