UPDATED 2:12 P.M.
ASHDOD, Israel (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday he has still not seen a plan for Israel’s planned offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah that would protect civilians, repeating that Washington could not support such an assault.
Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Jerusalem for two-and-a-half hours, after which Israel repeated that the Rafah operation would go ahead despite the U.S. position and a U.N. warning that it would lead to “tragedy”.
“We cannot, will not support a major military operation in Rafah absent an effective plan to make sure that civilians are not harmed and no, we’ve not seen such a plan,” Blinken told reporters.
“There are other ways, and in our judgment better ways, of dealing with the … ongoing challenge of Hamas that does not require a major military operation in Rafah,” he said, adding that it was the subject of ongoing talks with Israeli officials.
An Israeli government spokesperson said Israel remained determined to destroy the remaining Hamas fighting formations.
“When it comes to Rafah – we are committed to remove the last four of five Hamas battalions in Rafah – we are sharing our plans with Secretary of State Blinken,” the spokesperson told a regular briefing.
Israel is the final stop on the top U.S. diplomat’s Middle East tour, his seventh visit to the region which was plunged into conflict last October when Hamas attacked southern Israel. It has largely focused on efforts to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza.
Blinken spoke at Israel’s main port, Ashdod, and praised “meaningful progress” in recent weeks on humanitarian access, including by allowing flour for Gaza to flow through the port, as well as by opening up new border crossings.
“The progress is real but given the need, given the immense need in Gaza, it needs to be accelerated, it needs to be sustained,” he said.
Blinken asked Israel’s government to take a set of specific steps to facilitate aid to Gaza, where nearly half the population are suffering catastrophic hunger, he said.
The United States is Israel’s main diplomatic supporter and weapons supplier. Blinken’s visit comes about a month after U.S. President Joe Biden issued a stark warning that Washington’s policy could shift if Israel fails to take steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering and the safety of aid workers.
Blinken also urged Hamas to accept a truce deal proposed by Egyptian mediators which would see 33 hostages released in exchange for a larger number of Palestinian prisoners and a halt to the fighting, with the possibility of further steps towards a comprehensive deal later.
“Israel has made very important compromises,” he said. “There’s no time for further haggling. The deal is there. They (Hamas) should take it.”
A senior official for Hamas said it was still studying the proposed deal but said Israel was the real obstacle.
“Blinken’s comments contradict reality,” Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
Israel is holding off sending a delegation to Cairo for follow-up truce talks, pending a response from Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, an Israeli official told Reuters.
ASSAULT ON RAFAH
U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Tuesday that an Israeli ground operation in Rafah was “on the immediate horizon.” In a statement, he said Israeli improvements to aid access in Gaza “cannot be used to prepare for or justify a full-blown military assault on Rafah.”
Netanyahu has insisted the operation will go ahead, whatever the outcome of the talks, and Israeli media reported on Wednesday that he was still refusing to accept Hamas’ central demand that any deal would have to include a permanent ceasefire and a withdrawal of Israeli troops.
Ynet news site, citing the Prime Minister’s Office, said Netanyahu told Blinken a Rafah operation “was not contingent on anything” and that he rejected any truce proposals that would end the Gaza war.
While facing international calls to hold off on any Rafah offensive, Netanyahu has faced pressure from the religious nationalist partners he depends on for the survival of his coalition government to press ahead. Israel has described Rafah as a last bastion of Hamas, which it has vowed to eliminate.
En route to a visit to Kerem Shalom, one of the main crossing points for aid into Gaza, Blinken made a brief stop at Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel, where Hamas militants attacked on Oct.7, killing dozens of residents and kidnapping others. Blinken visited the heavily damaged home of an American-Israeli family, all of whom, including five-year old twins, were killed in the assault.
Hamas killed 1,200 people and abducted 253 in the assault, according to Israeli tallies. The hostages are mostly Israeli but include some foreign nationals.
In response, Israel has overrun Gaza, killing more than 34,000 Palestinians, local health authorities say, in a bombardment that has reduced much of the enclave to a wasteland.
More than one million people face famine after six months of war, the United Nations has said.
As night fell on Wednesday, Israeli planes and tanks pounded several areas across Gaza, residents and Hamas media said.
Medics in Gaza said at least 27 Palestinians were killed in strikes on Wednesday, with others likely hurt or killed in areas they were unable to reach.
(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo and Simon Lewis in Washington; Editing by Michael Perry, Ros Russell, Nick Macfie and Alexander Smith)
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KEREM SHALOM, Israel (Reuters) -Tank fire echoed from the Gaza strip on Wednesday as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited an aid inspection point, where he heard from Israeli officials including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant about efforts to increase assistance to the Palestinian enclave just a few hundred meters away.
Blinken got his first up-close view of the strip six months into the war as he toured a compound at the Kerem Shalom crossing bordered by thick concrete walls where aid trucks bound for Gaza are held for inspection, a process that aid groups have complained has been a major bottleneck.
Sacks of canned chickpeas, rice, potatoes and toilet paper, some marked with the logo of the UN’s World Food Programme or the World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid group sat on pallets waiting to enter Gaza. Soldiers carrying automatic weapons roamed around the area known as an “inspection cell”.
Israel has sought to demonstrate it is not blocking aid to Gaza, especially since President Joe Biden issued a stark warning to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying Washington’s policy could shift if Israel fails to take steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.
That move came after seven WCK aid workers were killed by an Israeli strike, increasing anger over the dire conditions for Palestinians in Gaza.
U.S. officials and aid groups say some progress has been made but warn it is insufficient, amid stark warnings of imminent famine among Gaza’s 2.3 million people.
The war began when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and abducting 253 others, according to Israeli tallies.
In response, Israel has launched a relentless assault on Gaza, killing more than 34,000 Palestinians, local health authorities say, in a bombardment that has reduced the enclave to a wasteland.
The Kerem Shalom crossing was closed after Oct. 7, when Israel imposed a strict blockade on Gaza, but reopened to limited traffic in December. As well as the crossings at Kerem Shalom and nearby Rafah, on the border with Egypt, Israel has recently said it is opening crossings into northern Gaza to aid trucks.
Israeli officials can inspect 55 trucks every hour at Kerem Shalom and work from morning to sunset, said Shimon Freedman, international media spokesperson for COGAT, an Israeli Defense Ministry agency tasked with coordinating aid deliveries into Palestinian territories.
Freedman said the bottleneck on aid deliveries was inside Gaza, not on the Israeli side.
At least 26 trucks carrying humanitarian aid were waiting by the road just outside the Kerem Shalom inspection point waiting to enter. A Reuters witness also saw dozens of military vehicles and tanks on a field next to the road leading up to Kerem Shalom.
Blinken earlier on Wednesday discussed with Netanyahu “the improvement in the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza since the call between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu on April 4 and reiterated the importance of accelerating and sustaining that improvement,” said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.
Ahead of his arrival in Israel, Blinken said Israel needed do more on aid, including by standing up a deconfliction mechanism with humanitarian agencies and making sure there are enough drivers and trucks within Gaza to deliver aid where it is needed.
He said a clear list of humanitarian items was also needed to make sure aid shipments were not arbitrarily denied entry into Gaza during Israel’s inspections.
While the focus of Blinken’s visit was on getting more aid to Palestinians in Gaza, Washington has also warned Israel not to go ahead with a planned assault on the southern city of Rafah.
Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel will carry out an operation against Hamas in Rafah regardless of whether a ceasefire and hostage release deal is reached.
United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Tuesday that an Israeli ground operation in Rafah was “on the immediate horizon.” In a statement, he said Israeli improvements to aid access in Gaza “cannot be used to prepare for or justify a full-blown military assault on Rafah.”
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by Simon Lewis; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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