Khan Younis : As the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza enters the 30th day on Sunday, the Palestinians remains under attack while the US is trying to persuade Israel to take a humanitarian pause from airstrikes. Palestinians reported that there were multiple fatalities across the besieged enclave.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is making a new push to help civilians, and met with Arab foreign ministers on Saturday in Jordan. That was after his talks in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who insisted there could be no temporary cease-fire until all hostages held by Hamas are released. President Joe Biden suggested Saturday that progress is being made on the humanitarian pause.
Gaza death toll 9,488
The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war has reached 9,448, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, more than 140 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids. The UNRWA says 72 of its staff members have been killed.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them in the October 7 Hamas attack that started the fighting, and 242 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by the militant group. Roughly 1,100 people have left the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing since Wednesday under an apparent agreement among the United States, Egypt, Israel and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas. Firefighters sprayed jets of water across twisted metal and jumbled concrete as flames roared from homes destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in the Jabaliya refugee camp.
US persuading Israel to pause military strikes
President Joe Biden suggested Saturday there have been some advances in U.S. attempts to persuade Israel to pause military strikes on Gaza for humanitarian reasons. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Arab counterparts Saturday. He disagreed with them on the need for an immediate cease-fire and made clear the furthest he would go was backing a pause for aid to reach civilians in Gaza. Blinken said a cease-fire would leave Hamas in place.
Families of hostages hold demonstration
Thousands of people have joined a demonstration in Tel Aviv organized by families of some 240 hostages being held in the Gaza Strip. They chanted repeatedly, calling for hostages to be freed without delay after nearly a month in captivity. Many held pictures of the hostages, who include children and older people. Hadas Kalderon of Kibbutz Nir Oz whose two children were kidnapped, ages 16 and 12, called for a cease-fire in exchange for the return of the hostages.
Hamas militants abducted the hostages in an Oct. 7 cross-border raid that triggered the latest Israel-Hamas war. The plight of the hostages and their families has captured the nation's attention.
Protests against US support to Israel
Thousands of mostly young people filled the streets of downtown Washington D.C. on Saturday afternoon to protest the Biden administration's support of Israel and its continued military campaign in Gaza. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, chanted demonstrators. They wore black and white keffiyehs as an enormous Palestinian flag was unfurled by a crowd that filled Pennsylvania Avenue, the street leading up to the White House.
The U.S. Central Command says the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group arrived in the Middle East and the CENTCOM area of responsibility as part of the increase in regional posture. The Eisenhower sailed into the Mediterranean last Saturday as the American forces expand their presence in the Middle East to deter Iran and its proxy militant groups from trying to widen the Israel-Hamas war.
Demand for Israeli PM Netanyahu's resignation
Thousands of Israelis are protesting outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's official residence in central Jerusalem, calling on the Israeli leader to resign in the wake of the bloody October 7 Hamas rampage that sparked the latest Israel-Hamas war. Netanyahu has so far refused to take responsibility for the October 7 attack, in which several thousand Hamas militants burst into Israel and killed over 1,400 people and took some 240 hostages back to Gaza. He says officials, including himself, will have to give answers to the public, but only after the war.
Jordan, Egypt urge immediate ceasefire
The Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers urged an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hamas but US Secretary Blinken took the position that that would be counterproductive and made clear the furthest he would go was supporting a humanitarian pause to give time for humanitarian supplies to be delivered and getting civilians out of Gaza.
'Hamas must be destroyed'
German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said in a video speech Saturday to members of his party, The Greens, that basically, Hamas must be destroyed because it is destroying the process of peace in the Middle East. Habeck added, according to German news agency dpa, that Hamas' Oct. 7 attack "requires a necessary consequence from Israel.
Whole region sinking in a seat of hatred: Jordan
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told reporters Saturday that though he condemned the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7 and that though nobody in their right mind would belittle the pain felt by Israel that day, the war in Gaza could not be permitted to continue. The whole region is sinking in a sea of hatred that will define generations to come, Safadi said after a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.
He said the Arab countries were demanding an immediate cease-fire, a more dramatic action than the humanitarian pauses supported by the Biden administration to allow for the delivery of food and other supplies and to enable time to secure the release of hostages.
Pleas of Lebanon and Egypt
The Lebanese and Egyptian leaders urged the international community to intensify efforts to contain the situation and avert expanding the scope of violence. Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati flew to Cairo on Saturday for talks with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt, after his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the Jordanian capital of Amman. According to a statement from el-Sissi's office, they also affirmed the necessity of relaunching the peace track and implement the state-state solution principle to achieve justice, security and stability to the region's peoples.
The Palestinian Red Crescent says at least 21 people taking shelter outside Al-Quds hospital in Gaza were wounded Saturday afternoon when an Israeli airstrike hit a building close to the entrance of the emergency ward. Writing on X platform, formerly Twitter, the charity said the bombing, the closest to the facility, stoked panic and fear among displaced families camping outside the hospital. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
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