Israel bombs southern Gaza as Antony Blinken travels to Egypt for negotiations

Palestinian Territories: As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was ready to go to Egypt on Thursday for more negotiations aimed at curbing Israel’s conflict against Hamas, Israel shelled the southern Gaza Strip throughout the night.

A day after meeting with Mahmud Abbas, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, the diplomat was scheduled to see Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo. Blinken said that Abbas “committed” to modernizing the organization in order to possibly bring Gaza and the occupied West Bank back under its control after the conflict.

The goal of his fourth journey to the Middle East was to stop the war from spreading. On Wednesday, the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for a “immediate” halt to strikes in the Red Sea by the Houthi rebels of Yemen, who are acting in cooperation with Hamas.

It also occurs at the same time as South Africa is expected to accuse Israel before the UN Supreme Court on Thursday of committing “genocidal” activities in Gaza; both Israel and Blinken have refuted these claims as unfounded.

The major southern city of Gaza, Khan Yunis, was among the 62 victims of nighttime attacks, according to a statement released early on Thursday by the Hamas news office.

The previous evening, Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said that personnel in the region were still “acting decisively above and below ground.”

The army had earlier in the day said that forces had discovered “tunnel shafts, tunnel routes, and numerous weapons and materials” and had killed “dozens of terrorists” east of the city.

Four doctors and two other passengers were murdered on Wednesday in an Israeli attack on an ambulance in central Gaza, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.

When AFP contacted the Israeli military, they did not immediately provide a statement on the event.

Those injured in an attack at a neighboring school in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, were sent to the Al-Aqsa hospital.

At the hospital, Ramadan Darwit told AFP, “There are people injured at the school since last night, no cars or ambulances are reaching it — nothing.”

Israeli army head Herzi Halevi described the central Gaza area as a “complex battlefield” during a tour with soldiers.

“The adversary has organized and prepared its defenses over an extended period of time, so the battle is both above and below ground. This is a very, very complicated battlefield with a large population and plenty of buildings,” he said.

The “inexplicable” catastrophe

When Hamas carried out its historic October 7 onslaught, which killed around 1,140 people in Israel, largely civilians, an AFP count based on government numbers revealed that the conflict in Gaza broke out.

Around 250 hostages were also taken by militants; according to Israel, 132 of them are still in Gaza, with at least 25 of them thought to have died.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, which is managed by Hamas, Israel has reacted with a ruthless military operation that has killed at least 23,357 individuals, the majority of them were women and children.

There is a severe humanitarian catastrophe as a result of the conflict, with food, water, fuel, and medication shortages brought on by an Israeli blockade.

The head of UN relief efforts, Martin Griffiths, said on the social networking site X that Gaza’s health system “is being choked off.”

The humanitarian situation was described as “indescribable” by the World Health Organization.

Former Gaza health ministry employee Zaki Shaheen turned his business into a temporary clinic in the southern border town of Rafah, which has been swamped by displaced civilians fleeing war farther north.

Shaheen claimed to have spent “my whole life” working in emergency medicine.

He told AFP, “So we decided to open a medical department, and we got help from the health ministry,” adding that the intention was to relieve some of the strain that already lay on hospitals.

We get at least thirty to forty instances a day, from dawn to dusk. When someone arrives with a burn or injury while I’m asleep, we tend to them.”

After years of hardship and embargo, the UN believes that 1.9 million Gazans have been forced to flee inside the enclave.

After meeting with Abbas and the King of Bahrain, Hamad, Blinken drew out a potential post-war plan for Gaza on Wednesday.

Blinken informed Abbas that Washington backed “tangible steps” toward the establishment of a Palestinian state, a long-term objective that the hard-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted.

Blinken said that Abbas was “committed” to changing the Palestinian Authority “so that it can effectively take responsibility for Gaza, so that Gaza and the West Bank can be reunited under a Palestinian leadership” when he was in Bahrain.

Houthis issued a warning

Meanwhile, concerns of an expanding battle between Israel and armed organizations sponsored by Iran—primarily Hezbollah in Lebanon, but also forces in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen—have surged.

An important route for world commerce, the Red Sea, has seen many assaults on commercial ships by Houthi rebels in Yemen who say they are supporting Hamas.

Multinational naval task force formed by the US to defend ships from strikes that, according to Blinken on Wednesday, were “aided and abetted” by Iran and would have “consequences”

A resolution requesting “that the Houthis immediately cease all such attacks, which impede global commerce and undermine navigational rights and freedoms as well as regional peace and security” was approved by the UN Security Council on the same day.

The US Central Command said that the rebels had “launched a complex” offensive in the region only a day before. It also stated that US and British troops had shot down three missiles and eighteen drones, all without claiming any lives or causing any damage.