TEL AVIV/GAZA, Oct 17 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden will visit Israel on Wednesday to show solidarity with the Jewish state, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to let humanitarian aid reach residents besieged Gaza, Washington said.
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid have reached Rafah, the only crossing point into Egypt from the Palestinian enclave. A witness told Reuters that some 160 trucks left the nearby Egyptian town of Al-Arish.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Joe Biden’s visit after several hours of talks with Benjamin Netanyahu, during which the latter agreed to develop a plan to deliver humanitarian aid to civilians from Gaza.
“The president will hear what Israel needs to defend its people and we will continue to work with Congress to meet those needs,” Antony Blinken said. Joe Biden would also like to “hear from Israel on how its operations will be conducted in a way that minimizes civilian casualties and allows the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not benefit Hamas.”
Washington is also trying to rally Arab states to avoid a wider regional war, after Iran promised “preventive action” from the “resistance front” of its allies, including the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.
After his visit to Israel, Joe Biden will travel to Jordan to meet King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, US security spokesman said National, John Kirby.
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The Israeli army also said it struck Hamas and Islamic Jihad military targets overnight, including the Hamas headquarters and a bank used by the group. At least 49 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike in Khan Younis and Rafah, Gaza’s interior ministry said.
Israel says Hamas fighters captured 199 hostages during their attack. Hamas said the foreigners among the captives were its “guests” and would be released “when circumstances permit,” while specifying that its goal was to exchange Israeli captives for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. .
Hamas released a video on Monday in which we see a French-Israeli woman being treated by a nurse. She identified herself as Mia Schem, 21, and asked to be returned to her family as quickly as possible.
By visiting Israel in the midst of conflict, Joe Biden made a rare and risky decision intended to demonstrate American support for Benjamin Netanyahu, as the United States tried to avoid a regional conflagration involving Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah and Syria.
As Israel plans a ground invasion of Gaza to eradicate Hamas, cross-border clashes have intensified with Hezbollah on a second front, on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
Israel, which is massing troops on the Gaza border, has asked more than a million residents of the northern half of the enclave to flee south for their safety. Hamas told them to stay put.
The United Nations says it is impossible to displace that many people without causing a humanitarian catastrophe, and says a million Gaza residents have already been driven from their homes. (Reporting Nidal al-Mughrabi, Bassam Massoud and Nuha Sharaf in Gaza; Ari Rabinovitch, Dan Williams, Henriette Chacar, Dedi Hayun, Maayan Lubell, Emily Rose, James Mackenzie and John Davison in Jerusalem; Parisa Hafezi in Dubai; Humeyra Pamuk, Hatem Maher, Ahmed Tolba and Omar Abdel-Razek in Cairo, Trevor Hunnicutt, Nandita Bose, Rami Ayyub and Katharine Jackson in Washington; Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; written by David Brunnstrom and Stephen Coates; French version Augustin Turpin, edited by Kate Entringer)
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