UPDATED 9:10 A.M.
GAZA/RAMALLAH (Reuters) -Efforts were under way on Sunday to resume evacuations of injured Gazans and foreign passport holders through the Rafah crossing to Egypt, suspended since Saturday after a deadly ambulance attack, Egyptian, U.S. and Qatari officials said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas demanded an immediate Israeli ceasefire at a meeting with U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Ramallah, while Gaza’s health ministry said dozens died in a strike on a refugee camp overnight.
Blinken, who has dismissed the idea of a ceasefire by Israel for fear it would benefit Hamas, was making an unannounced visit to the occupied West Bank as part of efforts to prevent the Israel-Hamas war spreading.
The Rafah crossing to Egypt’s Sinai peninsula is the only exit point from Gaza not controlled by Israel. Aid trucks were still able to travel into Gaza, two Egyptian sources said.
Evacuations began on Wednesday under an internationally brokered deal.
More than 300 Americans have left Gaza, but some still remain, Jonathan Finer, deputy national security adviser, said.
“We believe it will (reopen) this afternoon,” a senior U.S. State Department official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Don’t hold me to it,” the official added.
At the Maghazi refugee camp refugee camp in Gaza, people searched for victims or survivors.
“All night I and the other men were trying to pick the dead from the rubble. We got children, dismembered, torn apart flesh,” said Saeed al-Nejma, 53, adding that he had been asleep with his family in their house when the blast hit his neighbourhood.
A spokesman for the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said the Israeli military had struck the camp overnight, killing at least 47 people.
In a separate attack, 21 Palestinians from one family, including women and children, were killed in Israeli strikes overnight, the health ministry said.
Reuters could not independently verify these accounts.
‘NO WORDS’
“We demand that you stop them from committing these crimes immediately,” Abbas told Blinken, urging an “immediate ceasefire” from Israel.
“There are no words to describe the war of genocide and destruction to which our Palestinian people are being subjected in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli war machine, without regard to the rules of international law,” Palestinian news agency WAFA quoted Abbas as telling Blinken.
Foreign ministers from Qatar, Saudi, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates met Blinken in Amman on Saturday and also urged him to persuade Israel to agree to a ceasefire.
Pope Francis joined calls for peace. “Stop in the name of God,” he said, calling for humanitarian aid and help for the injured in order to ease the “very grave” situation in Gaza.
But Blinken says a ceasefire would benefit Hamas, allowing it to regroup and attack again. Instead, the U.S. wants localised pauses in fighting to allow in humanitarian aid and for people to leave Gaza.
“The Secretary reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to the delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance and resumption of essential services in Gaza,” spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
Israel says it is targeting Hamas, not civilians, and that the Islamist Palestinian group is using residents as human shields.
Gaza health officials said on Sunday more than 9,770 Palestinians have been killed in the war, which began when Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 240 hostage.
MORE STRIKES
Israel continued to strike the Gaza Strip by air, sea, and ground overnight.
Gaza health officials said Israeli air strikes destroyed houses in the Maghazi refugee camp. Asked for comment, the Israeli military said they were gathering details.
Mohammad Al-Aloul, a photographer for Turkish news agency Anadolu, said he lost his four children, four of his brothers and their children in the strike, which destroyed his house.
“I arrived in hospital and found out that my four children, including my only daughter, were martyred,” Al-Aloul told Reuters.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said there was also intense bombardment, violent artillery explosions, and air strikes in the vicinity of the Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza’s Tal Al-Hawa area.
U.S. special envoy David Satterfield said in Amman on Saturday that 800,000 to a million people had moved south, while 350,000 to 400,000 remained in and around Gaza City.
Living conditions in Gaza, already dire before the war, have deteriorated. Food is scarce, residents are drinking salty water and medical services are collapsing.
The U.N. humanitarian office estimates that nearly 1.5 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are internally displaced.
Qatar’s foreign ministry said that without a “period of calm” in Gaza its mediators would not be able to secure the release of Israeli hostages held in the enclave.
The Gulf state has, in coordination with the U.S., led mediation talks with Hamas and Israeli officials over the release of hostages since the Oct. 7 attack.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disciplined a junior member of his cabinet who voiced openness to the idea of Israel carrying out a nuclear strike on Gaza.
WEST BANK VIOLENCE WORSENS
Worsening violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has fuelled concerns that it could become a third front in a wider war, in addition to Israel’s northern border, where clashes with Lebanese Hezbollah forces have mounted.
In Abu Dis, a Palestinian village near Jerusalem, Israeli police conducting an arrest raid were fired on by a gunman and killed him, a police spokesperson said.
The Palestinian health ministry said three Palestinians were killed in the incident, which it described as clashes with Israeli forces. Another Palestinian was killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank city of Hebron, the ministry said. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on that.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Ali Sawafta and Simon Lewis in Ramallah, Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Yusri Mohamed in Ismailia, Ahmed Mohamed Hassan in Cairo; Additional reporting by Clauda Tanos; Writing by Michael Perry and Ingrid Melander; Editing by William Mallard, Alexander Smith and Conor Humphries)
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RAMALLAH (Reuters) -U.S. top diplomat Antony Blinken made an unannounced visit to the occupied West Bank on Sunday and met with the Palestinian Authority president as he continues a tour of the region amid spiraling tensions over Israel’s war with Hamas.
Blinken and Mahmoud Abbas met in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the de facto Palestinian capital, on his second visit to the region since Palestinian Hamas fighters launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 240 others hostage.
As Israel continued a campaign of air strikes that Gaza health officials say has killed nearly 9,500 Palestinians, Secretary of State Blinken rebuffed calls for a ceasefire from Arab officials on Saturday after appealing, unsuccessfully, to Israel for more limited pauses to the fighting a day earlier.
As well as seeking to ensure the conflict does not spread in the region, Blinken is trying to kickstart discussions on how Gaza could be governed after the complete destruction of Hamas that Israel says is its aim.
Blinken told Abbas that the Palestinian Authority should play a central role in what comes next in the Gaza Strip, a senior State Department official told Reuters.
“(The) future of Gaza was not the focus of the meeting but the Palestinian Authority seemed willing to play a role,” the senior State Department official added.
The two met for about an hour but did not address the media.
Abbas told Blinken there should be an immediate ceasefire and that aid should be allowed into Gaza, according to spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh.
Blinken said the United States was committed to getting aid into Gaza and restoring essential services there, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a readout of the meeting.
“The Secretary also expressed the commitment of the United States to working toward the realization of the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations for the establishment of a Palestinian state,” Miller said.
Blinken has suggested an “effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority” would make the most sense to ultimately run the strip but admitted that other countries and international agencies would likely play a role in security and governance in the interim.
Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has seen its popularity shrivel amid allegations of graft, incompetence and widely hated security cooperation arrangements with Israel. It is unclear who will succeed the aging and ailing Abbas, 87, a staunch opponent of Hamas.
The foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan said on Saturday after meeting with Blinken that it was premature to talk about the future of Gaza, as they called for an immediate ceasefire to address the humanitarian crisis that has engulfed the strip’s 2.3 million residents.
Blinken argued that a ceasefire would only allow Hamas to regroup, but is trying to convince Israel to agree to location-specific pauses that would allow much needed aid to be distributed within Gaza.
The meeting was Blinken’s second with Abbas since the conflict began, but the first to take place in the West Bank. It was not announced ahead of time and Reuters agreed not to publish details of the trip until it was complete due to security concerns.
Violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, already at a more than 15-year high this year, has surged further since the war began, with more than 170 attacks on Palestinians involving Jewish settlers recorded by the United Nations.
Blinken and Abbas “discussed efforts to restore calm and stability in the West Bank, including the need to stop extremist violence against Palestinians and hold those accountable responsible,” Miller said.
(Reporting by Simon Lewis and Ali Sawafta; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Alexander Smith)
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