Israel yesterday rebuffed growing international pressure for a ceasefire and said its forces had encircled Gaza City as the top US diplomat scrambled to contain a crisis that threatened to cause further escalation in neighbouring Lebanon.
Gaza was under “unprecedented bombardment” from Israel yesterday, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported, while Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel said that all communications and Internet services had once again been cut.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas joined international calls for an immediate ceasefire at a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was making an unannounced visit to the occupied West Bank.
But after Blinken repeated US concerns that a ceasefire could aid Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled that out unless hostages held by Hamas were released: “There will be no ceasefire without the return of the hostages. This should be completely removed from the lexicon.”
A military spokesman said Israeli forces had surrounded the main city in Gaza: “They reached the coast in the southern part of Gaza City and they encircled Gaza City.”
Tensions increased with Lebanon as an Israeli strike on a car in the south of the country killed three children and their grandmother, Lebanese authorities said.
Israel’s chief military spokesperson said the military had attacked “terrorist targets of Hizbollah in southern Lebanon” in response to a missile attack against tanks that killed an Israeli citizen. He said a Hizbollah drone was also shot down.
Hizbollah said it responded by firing rockets at the town of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel. The group said it would never tolerate attacks on civilians and its response would be “firm and strong”.
Sirens sounded across central Israel, with Israeli media reporting rockets struck areas in and around Tel Aviv. No casualties were reported.
Gaza health officials said more than 9,770 Palestinians have been killed in the war, which began when Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 240 hostage.
Victims
Israel said 31 of its soldiers have been killed so far.
At the Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza, where the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave said Israeli forces had killed at least 47 people in an overnight strike, 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 when the blast hit his neighbourhood.
Asked for comment, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they were gathering details.
In a separate attack, 21 Palestinians from one family, including women and children, were killed in strikes overnight, the health ministry said.
“We demand that you stop them from committing these crimes immediately,” Abbas told Blinken, urging an “immediate ceasefire” from Israel.
Palestinians were facing a war of “genocide and destruction”, news agency WAFA quoted Abbas as saying.
Foreign ministers from Qatar, Saudi, Egypt, Jordan and the UAE met Blinken in Amman on Saturday and also urged him to persuade Israel to agree to a ceasefire. Blinken also visited Iraq yesterday and held talks with Prime Minister Mohammed Al Sudani.
But Blinken says a ceasefire would benefit Hamas, allowing it to regroup and attack again. Instead, the US 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.
Blinken said the Palestinian Authority should play a central role in the future of the Gaza strip, a US official said after the West Bank visit.
Efforts were underway yesterday to resume evacuations of foreign nationals and injured Gazans through the Rafah crossing to Egypt, suspended since Saturday after a deadly attack on an ambulance, Egyptian, US and Qatari officials said.
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, Egyptian sources said.
Evacuations began on Wednesday under an internationally brokered deal.
More than 300 Americans and their family members have left Gaza but US citizens remain in the besieged enclave and difficult negotiations continue on securing release of hostages taken by Hamas, a White House official said.
Those released included US citizens, lawful permanent residents and their family members, Jonathan Finer, deputy national security adviser, said on the CBS programme Face the Nation.
Finer said a number of Americans who want to get out remain inside Gaza as the Israel-Hamas conflict rages but did not specify how many.
There were around 400 American citizens and their family members, totalling around 1,000 people, who wanted to get out, Blinken said last week.
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.
Qatar has, in co-ordination with the US, led talks with Hamas and Israeli officials over the release of hostages.
Worsening violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has fuelled concerns it could become a third front in a wider war, in addition to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the IDF were focusing on ground operations in the north of Gaza “to free our hostages and to free Gaza from Hamas”.
“We will adapt our plan to stay with the goals, and it will take us a long time,” he added.
He said the IDF has exposed a network of Hamas tunnels, command centres and rocket launchers beneath and adjacent to hospitals in northern Gaza.
“Hamas systematically exploits hospitals as part of its war machine,” Hagari told reporters.
In a statement, Hamas called on the United Nations secretary general to form an international committee to visit hospitals to counter Israel’s “false claims” that Hamas uses them to launch attacks
The UN humanitarian office estimates that nearly 1.5 million of Gaza’s 2.3m people are internally displaced.
Aid currently entering Gaza is “nowhere near” enough to meet people’s needs, World Food Programme head Cindy McCain said after visiting the Rafah crossing.
“People are living in a horrific nightmare,” McCain said. “Food and water are running out. A steady flow of aid is needed to meet the desperate needs now.”
In southern Türkiye, police used tear gas and water cannon as hundreds of people at a pro-Palestinian rally tried to storm an air base that houses US troops, hours before Blinken was due in Ankara for talks on Gaza today.
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