US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken on Sunday made a surprise visit to the occupied West Bank where he held a meeting with Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas as Israel pressed its war to destroy Hamas that has already claimed thousands of lives.
Africa Today News, New York reports that Blinken arrived in Ramallah under tight security one day after meeting in Jordan with Arab foreign ministers angered by mounting civilian deaths in Gaza, where the Hamas-run health ministry said dozens were killed in a strike on a refugee camp.
Washington has rejected pleas for a truce, supporting Israel instead in its mission to destroy Hamas militants who, according to Israeli officials, carried out the bloodiest attack in the nation’s history on October 7, killing over 1,400 people and kidnapping 240 others.
In retaliation, Israel has shelled the beleaguered Gaza Strip nonstop, destroying entire city blocks and killing over 9,480 people, the majority of them were women and children, according to the health ministry operated by Hamas.
Blinken last week told a Senate hearing the Palestinian Authority should retake control of Gaza, even though it currently exercises only limited autonomy in parts of the West Bank and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long sought to sideline it.
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The Israel-Hamas war has exacerbated tensions in the West Bank, where more than 150 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces and in settler attacks, including three young men killed by Israeli forces on Sunday, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Africa Today News, New York reports that ground battles raged on Sunday in northern Gaza, where Israeli troops tightening their encirclement of Gaza City — still home to hundreds of thousands of civilians — were seen engaged in house-to-house battles as tanks and armoured bulldozers churned through the sand in footage released by the army.
In a video taken from Israel’s Sderot along the border with the Gaza Strip, an Israeli flag was seen raised on top of a destroyed building.
Since Israel sent ground forces into the north of the narrow Palestinian territory late last month, “over 2,500 terror targets have been struck” by ‘ground, air and naval forces’, the army said on Sunday.
Leaflets dropped by the army again urged Gaza City residents to evacuate south between 10 am (0800 GMT) and 2 pm (1200 GMT), a day after a US official said at least 350,000 civilians remained in and around the city that is now an urban war zone.
In the latest strikes in Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry said, Israeli bombing of Al-Maghazi refugee camp late Saturday killed 45 people, with an eyewitness reporting children dead and homes smashed.