Khan Yunis Bombardment Biden-Netanyahu Call Raises Concerns Over Two-State Solution
Witnesses said the Israeli bombardment was again focused overnight on Khan Yunis, the largest city in Gaza’s south, although Palestinian media also reported intense fire around Jabalia in the north early on Saturday.
Biden and Netanyahu held their first call since December 23 a day after the Israeli leader reiterated his rejection of any form of Palestinian sovereignty, deepening divisions with Israel’s key backer over the war.
While the two leaders spoke of what might come next, the reality of the war was all too clear in Khan Yunis and elsewhere in the Hamas-controlled territory.
A child with a bloodied face cried on a gurney at Al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, while ambulances carrying the wounded and the dead arrived to the sound of automatic weapons in the distance.
The conflict began with unprecedented attacks by Hamas that resulted in the deaths of about 1,140 people in Israel.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in response and its air and ground offensive has killed at least 24,762 Palestinians, around 70 percent of them women, young children, and adolescents, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Netanyahu has said Israel expects the war to continue for months, but his comments on Thursday rejecting the two-state solution suggested a rift with its key backer the United States.
Biden said after Friday’s call with Netanyahu, the Israeli leader might still come around.
“There are several types of two-state solutions. Several countries are members of the UN. don’t have their militaries Biden told reporters after an event at the White House.
And so, I think there are ways in which this could work.
Netanyahu said on Thursday Israel “must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River which contradicts the idea of (Palestinian) sovereignty.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had said in Davos a day earlier that Israel could not achieve genuine security without a “pathway to a Palestinian state.
