Blinken pursues truce as Israel presses onslaught in southern Gaza

CAIRO - United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Egypt’s president on Feb 6 as part of a 48-hour, four-nation flurry of shuttle diplomacy in search of a ceasefire in the Gaza 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, and a threatened assault looming in a nearby border town teeming with displaced people.

Mr Blinken arrived in Egypt after a stop in Saudi Arabia, and departed for Qatar after Cairo. He is meeting the main countries acting as mediators in the Gaza war.

Palestinians hope Mr Blinken’s Middle East swing will help nail down a ceasefire before Israeli forces storm Gaza’s southern fringes, where over a million displaced people are sheltering.

It was Mr 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 an Oct 7 attack that led to the current war.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Mr 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.

Mr Blinken departed Riyadh just after sunrise and arrived in Cairo where he met President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, then swiftly departed on a flight to Qatar. He is due in Israel overnight for consultations on the morning of Feb 7.

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

A Hamas official who asked not to be identified said on Feb 6 that the Palestinian armed group 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 non-partisan think-tank, the Israel Democracy Institute, issued a poll on Feb 6 finding that 51 per cent believe recovering the hostages should be the main goal of the war, while 36 per cent 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 the remaining hostages they are holding, followed by later phases to hand over soldiers and bodies, in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.

The only truce so far lasted just a week in November 2023, during which 110 hostages were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinians in Israeli jails.

Washington also aims to prevent further escalation elsewhere in the Middle East, after days of US air strikes on armed proxies of Iran, a major backer of Hamas, and further attacks on Red Sea shipping by Yemen’s Houthi militia.

In an update on Feb 6, Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 27,580 Palestinians had been confirmed killed in Israel’s military campaign. Thousands more were 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 launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas gunmen attacked southern Israel on Oct 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages.

The dead are in comfort, the living are in pain

Israeli forces on Feb 6 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 said.

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 the group denies.

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

Displaced again and again by Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, Mr 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 Mr 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.” REUTERS