Top US diplomat to meet with Israeli PM amid growing concerns over escalation

Tuesday, as part of measures to control the Gaza war, top US diplomat Antony Blinken was scheduled to meet with Israeli authorities. A day earlier, strikes in Syria and Lebanon had killed prominent figures from Hamas and its partner Hezbollah.

The visit coincides with the Israeli military’s announcement that it is entering a new phase of its campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, one that will involve more focused operations in the south and center of the area. According to Gaza’s health ministry, Israel murdered at least 23,084 Palestinians, predominantly women and children, during its ground invasion and ceaseless bombardment.

On Monday, sirens alerting people to impending rocket attacks sounded in central and southern Israel as well as close to the border with Lebanon. There, Israeli strikes and small-scale gunfire exchanges with Hezbollah fighters have stoked fears that the battle may move north.

Hezbollah identified the victim as Wissam Hassan Tawil and declared earlier in the day that a leader had been killed for the first time since October.

Speaking under anonymity, a security officer in Lebanon stated that Tawil “had a leading role in managing Hezbollah’s operations in the south” and that an Israeli strike killed him there.

The Israeli military stated that it attacked “military sites” of Hezbollah in Lebanon on Monday, although it refrained from commenting on Tawil’s passing right away.

This month, there have been two high-profile killings in Lebanon. The first occurred in a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut, when Saleh al-Aruri, the deputy head of Hamas, was killed.

Additionally, the Israeli army declared on Monday that it had eliminated Hassan Akasha, a “central” Hamas commander in Syria who was in charge of “terrorist cells which fired rockets… toward Israeli territory.”

With the announcement of four more troops’ fatalities early on Tuesday, the Israeli army now has 180 soldiers killed since the start of its ground incursion. Since the Israeli military suppresses the actual death toll, it is most likely far higher.

Fears that an all-out war could break out in the Middle East have been heightened by the ongoing strikes in Syria and Lebanon, the attacks against US soldiers in Iraq, and the Houthis of Yemen, who support Hamas, who are targeting ships in the Red Sea.

Blinken made his fourth crisis trip to the Middle East since the start of the war, and in an effort to avert that possibility, he landed in Tel Aviv late on Monday after visiting six other nations.

Tuesday’s meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, other high-ranking officials, including war cabinet member and prominent opposition figure Benny Gantz were planned for the secretary of state.

The WHO reports that the war has put residents at danger of sickness and starvation and has forced the majority of Gaza’s population to flee.

Israeli rights organization B’Tselem claimed on Monday that “everyone in Gaza is going hungry” as “direct results of Israel’s declared policy,” given the small amount of aid that has been allowed to enter the beleaguered region.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a US-based organization, joined it and denounced Washington’s backing of the “far-right Israeli government’s declared policy of starvation” in a statement.

According to the US, Blinken would demand that Israel follow international humanitarian law and that it take “immediate measures” to increase aid to Gaza.

The number of civilian deaths in the conflict has alarmed Washington, which is Israel’s primary friend and arms supplier. President Joe Biden stated in a campaign address on Monday that he has been “quietly working with the Israeli government to get them to reduce” their force presence in Gaza.

The remarks were made as the Israeli army said that a new phase of its war in the region had begun.

Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari told the New York Times that there would be “no ceremony” to commemorate the changeover, but that less troops and airstrikes will be used in the subsequent phase. He also mentioned that the troop reduction started this month.

of his nightly briefing on Monday, Hagari mentioned a change of emphasis away from the severely damaged northern part of Gaza.

“While there are still terrorists and weapons in the north, they are no longer functioning within an organised military framework,” he stated.

He continued, saying that “hard battles were being fought both in the center and the south” of Gaza.

Just one day after the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network reported that an Israeli attack had killed two of its journalists, including the son of Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh, the UN declared on Monday that it was “very concerned by the high death toll of media workers”.

Two of Dahdouh’s nephews were murdered in another strike on Monday in the southern border town of Rafah. After losing his wife and two additional children to an Israeli bombing during the early stages of the war, Dahdouh was recently injured in an attack that claimed the life of his cameraman.

“They claim that Rafah is safe, but it doesn’t seem that way to us. Looking out over the bloodstained road, Mohammad Hejazy declared, “No place is safe.”

The UN office for human rights demanded that every death of a journalist be “thoroughly and independently investigated”.

There has been an increase in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as well. Late on Monday, Israeli police revealed that three people had died during a raid on Tulkarem in order to apprehend a “wanted terrorist”.

The Palestinian Health Ministry, located in Ramallah, reports that since October 7, at least 333 individuals have died in the West Bank as a result of Israeli forces and settler violence.