Top US diplomat pursues Gaza truce quest as Israel presses onslaught

[February 06, 2024]  By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Humeyra Pamuk and Mohammed Salem

DOHA/CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Egypt's president on Tuesday as part of a 48-hour, four-nation flurry of shuttle diplomacy in search of a ceasefire in Gaza's war, while Israel pressed its onslaught in the south of the enclave.

Israel said its forces had killed dozens of Palestinian gunmen throughout Gaza in the past 24 hours with fighting focused on Khan Younis in the south, with a threatened assault looming on a nearby border town teeming with displaced people.

Blinken arrived in Egypt after a stop in Saudi Arabia, and then departed for Qatar, for meetings with the main countries acting as mediators in the Gaza war. Palestinians hope the U.S. top diplomat's Middle East swing will nail down a ceasefire before Israeli forces storm Gaza's southern fringes where over a million displaced people are sheltering.

It was Blinken's first visit to the region since Washington brokered an offer, with Israeli input, for the war's first extended ceasefire. Qatar and Egypt conveyed the offer last week to Hamas, which says it wants guarantees Israel will withdraw, before it agrees to free remaining hostages its fighters captured in the Oct. 7 attack that precipiated the war.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Blinken and Saudi Arabia's ruling crown prince discussed regional steps to achieve an enduring end to the war, tackling the humanitarian disaster in Gaza and limiting regional spillovers of the crisis.

Blinken departed Riyadh just after sunrise and arrived in Cairo where he met with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, then swiftly departed for a flight to Qatar. He is due in Israel overnight for consultations on Wednesday morning.

Washington has for weeks sought an elusive deal to secure the release of remaining hostages in return for a long pause to fighting. There was no immediate word from any side whether Blinken's talks in Riyadh and Cairo had yielded progress.

A Hamas official who asked not to be identified told Reuters on Tuesday the Palestinian Islamist movement was not budging from its stance that there can be no hostage releases unless the war ends and Israeli forces leave Gaza.

Israel says any truce must be temporary and it will fight on until Hamas is wiped out. But there is also a growing movement demanding more effort to bring the hostages home, even if that means a deal with Hamas.

A nonpartisan think-tank, the Israel Democracy Institute, issued a poll on Tuesday finding that 51% believe recovering the hostages should be the main goal of the war, while 36% said it should be toppling Hamas.

As outlined by sources close to the talks, the offer envisages a truce of at least 40 days when militants would free civilians among remaining hostages they are holding, followed by later phases to hand over soldiers and bodies, in exchange for releases of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.

The only truce so far lasted just a week in November, during which 110 hostages were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken flanked by U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Herro Mustafa Garg meets with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi at Al-Ittihadiya Palace in Cairo, Egypt, Februray 6, 2024. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via REUTERS

Washington also aims to prevent further escalation elsewhere in the Middle East, after days of U.S. airstrikes on armed proxies of Iran, a major backer of Hamas, and further attacks on Red Sea shipping by Yemen's Tehran-aligned Houthi militia.

In an update on Tuesday, Gaza's Health Ministry said at least 27,585 Palestinians had been confirmed killed in Israel's military campaign, with thousands more feared buried under vast tracts of rubble across the densely populated enclave. Some 107 had been killed in the past 24 hours, the ministry said.

Israel says 226 of its soldiers have been killed in its offensive, launched after militants from Hamas-ruled Gaza burst through the border fence and killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages in a rampage through nearby Israeli communities.

THE DEAD ARE IN COMFORT, THE LIVING ARE IN PAIN

Israeli forces on Tuesday kept up the pressure on Khan Younis, the focus of their offensive for weeks. Aerial and tank bombardment thundered through the shattered city overnight, with at least 14 people killed by air strikes since the pre-dawn hours, Palestinian residents and medics told Reuters.

They said Israeli tanks and aircraft continued to pound and besiege areas around Khan Younis's two main hospitals - Nasser and Al-Amal. Israel's military says Hamas militants use hospital premises for cover, which Gaza's ruling Islamists deny.

Rafah, Palestinians' last southern refuge from Israeli advances towards the border with Egypt, was battered by several Israeli air strikes and tank shelling overnight with medics reporting at least several wounded among the many displaced.

Displaced again and again by Israel's military offensive on Gaza, Mahmoud Amer and his family had pitched their tent in a cemetery in Rafah, hoping they would be safer living among the dead, including the war's victims in their freshly dug graves.

"It's better than living in residential areas where the houses could collapse on our heads," said Amer, who spent weeks in other locations as the family made their way southwards from northern Gaza, fleeing Israel's advance.

"There is no water, no proper aid coming in. The situation is so bad," he said. "The dead are in comfort, while we, the living, are in pain."

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Doha and Humeyra Pamuk in Cairo; additional reporting by Dan Williams in JerusalemWriting by Mark HeinrichEditing by Peter Graff)

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