CAIRO, GAZA, JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The European Union’s (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken are expected in the Middle East on Friday to try to prevent the spread of the Gaza conflict in the region.
The visits come nearly three months after Hamas’s assault on Israel from Gaza. Since the ensuing Israeli offensive, 22,600 people have been killed in the enclave, according to Gaza health authorities.
Israel, which claims to have killed 8,000 fighters since the Hamas attack on October 7 that left 1,200 dead, announced Thursday that it was launching more targeted tactics in Gaza.
However, Palestinians said Israeli planes and tanks intensified strikes overnight on the densely populated Al Maghazi, Al Bureij and Al Nusseirat camps in the central coastal strip.
According to Palestinian health authorities, some 162 Gazans have been killed in the past 24 hours.
“The Israeli government claims to be democracy and humanity, but it is inhumane,” said Abdel Razek Abu Sinjar, weeping over the bodies of his wife and children, killed in a strike on his home Thursday. in Rafah, on the Egyptian border.
Artillery fire resumed near Al Amal hospital in Khan Younes, the Palestinian Red Crescent said, and the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders said its workers were stranded in the southern Gaza Strip. .
In Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, which was heavily bombed, videos broadcast by local journalists could be seen people making their way through ruined streets.
The Israeli army said it struck more than 100 targets across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, against gunmen who attempted to attack a tank in Al Bureij and others in Khan Younes. .
That conflict has also stoked violence in the West Bank, where local health authorities said a 17-year-old boy was killed and four other Palestinians were injured by Israeli army fire in the town of Beit Rima. A military spokesman said troops fired on Palestinians who threw gasoline bombs at them.
The U.N. human rights office reported that Israeli forces were using military tactics in the West Bank and that 300 Palestinians were killed, including 79 children, eight or nine of them by Israeli settlers. Two Israelis, a civilian and a soldier, were also killed.
DIPLOMACY
Antony Blinken is due to visit the West Bank during his tour which begins Friday in Turkey, a country which is one of those which has offered mediation. He will also visit Israel, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and will make a stop in Greece.
Antony Blinken will discuss during his tour measures intended to avoid a spread of the conflict, spokesperson Matthew Miller told journalists. “It is in no one’s interest – not Israel, not the region, not the world – for the conflict to extend outside of Gaza,” said the spokesperson for the US State Department.
For his part, Josep Borrell, head of European Union foreign policy, is due to travel to Lebanon on Friday to discuss the situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border, the EU said.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock will also visit Israel and the Palestinian territories from Sunday.
“The risk of escalation is unfortunately very real,” said a ministry spokesperson.
Hamas, which has sworn the destruction of Israel, is supported by Iran. Other Tehran-backed groups across the Middle East have struck U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, as well as Israel from Lebanon.
The leader of Hezbollah, a powerful Lebanese movement also supported by Iran, Hassan Nasrallah, must speak on Friday after warning Wednesday that his militia “could not remain silent” after the assassination in Beirut of the number two of the Hamas political bureau Palestinian, Saleh al-Arouri.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Hezbollah has exchanged artillery fire almost daily with Israel across Lebanon’s southern border. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied being behind the assassination of Saleh al-Arouri.
The Iran-allied Houthis, who control most of Yemen, have been attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea since November 19, forcing them to take much longer routes to compensate.
(Reporting Mohammad Azakir in Beirut, Nidal al-Mughrabi and Enas Alashay in Cairo, Arafat Barbakh in Gaza, Maayan Lubell on the Israel-Gaza border, Dan Williams and Emily Rose in Jerusalem, Clauda Tanios in Dubai and Trevor Hunnicutt and Jonathan Landay in Washington, written by Michael Perry and Philippa Fletcher; French version Kate Entringer, edited by Zhifan Liu)
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