Biden warns Iran over Gaza as Israel forms emergency war Cabinet
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Houses and buildings destroyed by Israeli strikes in Gaza City on Oct 10, 2023.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM/GAZA – US President Joe Biden on Wednesday warned Iran against getting involved in Israel’s conflict with Hamas, amid fears of a wider regional conflict, while Israeli leaders formed an emergency war Cabinet to present a united front.
Israeli jets have pounded the Gaza Strip for days in retribution for a weekend attack by Palestinian Hamas militants
Mr Biden despatched his top diplomat, Mr Antony Blinken, to the Middle East to show Washington’s enduring support for Israel,
Speaking at a round-table discussion of Jewish community leaders in Washington, Mr Biden said his deployment of military ships and aircraft closer to Israel should be seen as a signal to Iran, which backs Islamist groups Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
“We made it clear to the Iranians: Be careful,” Mr Biden said.
Iran likely knew Hamas militants were planning “operations against Israel”, but initial United States intelligence reports showed that some Iranian leaders were surprised by the group’s unprecedented attack from Gaza, US sources said on Wednesday.
Mr Blinken was expected to arrive in Israel on Thursday and would also visit Jordan. He was not scheduled to visit the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where he ordinarily meets Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Hamas ‘will cease to exist’
Hamas-affiliated media outlets said on Wednesday that seven people were killed by Israeli air strikes on homes in Khan Younis city in southern Gaza.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said retributive bombings by Israeli fighter jets have killed 1,100 people and wounded more than 5,000.
Some 535 residential buildings have been destroyed, leaving around 250,000 homeless, Hamas officials said.
Most of the displaced were in United Nations-designated shelters, others huddling in shattered streets.
Israel has deployed formations of tanks and armoured vehicles near Gaza in possible preparation for a ground offensive into the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave.
Israel withdrew Jewish settlers and Israeli troops from Gaza in 2005 after 38 years of occupation. An Israeli blockade since Hamas seized power in the enclave in 2007 has created conditions that Palestinians say are intolerable.
“We will wipe this thing called Hamas, ISIS-Gaza, off the face of the earth,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday, likening Hamas to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria militant group. “It will cease to exist.”
Mr Biden said he spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again on Wednesday, their fourth conversation in recent days, and told him Israel should follow the rules of war in its response against Hamas.
Washington said it was talking to Israel and Egypt about safe passage for civilians from Gaza, with food in short supply.
Asked if Washington had advocated for Israel to exercise restraint in its response, Mr Blinken said before departing that Israel respected international law and made efforts to avoid civilian casualties.
"We know that Israel will take all of the precautions that it can, just as we would, and again that’s what separates us from Hamas and terrorist groups that engage in the most heinous kind of activities," Mr Blinken said.
A fire in Ashkelon, southern Israel, on Oct 11, 2023, due to a rocket that was launched from the Gaza Strip.
PHOTO: REUTERS
‘We are all soldiers of Israel’
Israel’s leaders on Wednesday formed a unity government, promising to put aside bitter political divisions to focus on the fight against Hamas.
Former defence minister Benny Gantz, a centrist opposition leader, spoke live on Israeli television alongside Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant after forming a war Cabinet focused entirely on the conflict.
“Our partnership is not political; it is a shared fate,” said Mr Gantz. “At this time, we are all the soldiers of Israel.”
Palestinian refugees in the Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, carrying flags during a rally to express solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza on Oct 11, 2023.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Mr Netanyahu said the people of Israel and its leadership were united. “We have put aside all differences because the fate of our state is on the line,” he said.
Mr Gantz’s National Unity Party, which has fiercely opposed judicial reforms proposed by Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, said it would not promote any unrelated policy or laws while the fighting went on.
Israel has put Gaza under “total siege” to stop food and fuel reaching the enclave of 2.3 million people, many poor and dependent on aid. Hamas media said on Wednesday that electricity went out after the only power station stopped working.
With Palestinian rescue workers overwhelmed, others in the crowded coastal strip searched for bodies in the rubble.
“I was sleeping here when the house collapsed on top of me,” one man cried as he and others used torchlights on the stairs of a building hit by missiles to find anyone trapped. REUTERS
