Blinken heads to Mideast as Israel-Hamas war threatens famine

The Hague – US top diplomat Antony Blinken was set to return to the Middle East Wednesday in a new bid to secure a truce in the Israel-Hamas war as the threat of famine looms in besieged Gaza.

Global concern has mounted over the military conflict now in its sixth month, in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas in response to its October 7 attack.

Battles have raged at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital complex, which is crowded with thousands of patients and displaced people, and where Israel said Palestinian militants have been holed up.

Overnight bombing and battles killed another 90 people, said the health ministry in Hamas-tun Gaza, which put the territory’s overall Palestinian death toll at close to 32,000.

When a thunderstorm hit Gaza on Tuesday, Oum Abdullah Alwan said her children “screamed in fear” because “we can’t tell the difference between the sound of rain and the sound of shelling”.

Amid the fighting, talks have resumed in Qatar this week with the aim of halting the war and siege and freeing the remaining hostages held in the Gaza Strip.

United Nations agencies have warned that Gaza’s 2.4 million people are on the brink of famine, and UN rights chief Volker Turk charged Israel may be using “starvation as a method of war”.

US Secretary of State Blinken, who was expected in regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia Wednesday, has warned that Gaza’s “entire population” is suffering “severe levels of acute food insecurity”.

– Hostage families protest –

Long Israel’s top ally, the United States has voiced increasing concern over the humanitarian crisis and Israel’s plans to launch a ground assault on Gaza’s far-southern city of Rafah.

The city is the last area still untouched by Israeli ground troops and is now home to some 1.5 million Palestinians, many of them displaced from other parts of Gaza and sheltering in tents along the Egyptian border with nowhere else to flee.

Blinken is due to make a Thursday visit to Egypt, the main entry point for aid deliveries to Gaza and a key mediator in truce efforts.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant will visit Washington in the coming week for talks with Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, Israel said, as pressure builds to call off the planned offensive in Rafah.

The men are due to discuss “efforts to secure the release of all hostages held by Hamas, the need for more humanitarian aid to reach Palestinian civilians and plans to ensure the safety of the more than one million people sheltering in Rafah,” a US defence official said.

Netanyahu’s office also said a delegation would visit Washington at “the request of US President Joe Biden” to discuss the planned assault.

The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on October 7 resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized about 250 hostages, of whom Israel believes 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 who are presumed dead.

Relatives and friends of the captives rallied for their release on Wednesday, blocking the Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv.

Israel’s military has waged a relentless offensive against Hamas that has killed at least 31,923 people, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

– ‘Truce talks ongoing’ –

Mediators have met in Qatar, where Hamas’s political leadership is based, to revive a failed attempt to secure a ceasefire by the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan last week.

Israel’s spy chief David Barnea kicked off the talks with Egyptian and Qatari mediators on Monday, but there was little indication of an imminent agreement.

A source with knowledge of the negotiations, speaking on condition of anonymity because of their sensitivity, told AFP that “technical teams are still in Doha” and the “talks are ongoing”. 

The proposal being discussed would temporarily halt the fighting as hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners and the delivery of relief supplies is stepped up.

The war has meanwhile ground on unabated, and Israeli troops were pressing their assault on Al-Shifa, Gaza’s biggest hospital, which they allege Hamas has used for military purposes.

The army said that “over the past day, the troops have eliminated terrorists and located weapons in the hospital area, while preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams and medical equipment. 

“Thus far, the troops have killed approximately 90 terrorists in the area”, it said, adding that “160 suspects have been transferred to Israeli territory for further questioning”. 

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh accused Israel of seeking to “sabotage ongoing negotiations in Doha”.

As the war has drawn greater global scrutiny, Canada will halt all arms shipments to Israel, a government official told AFP on Tuesday, a decision that angered Israel.

Canada, which exported $15.5 million of military materiel to Israel in 2022, had already reduced its shipments to non-lethal equipment such as radios following the October 7 attack.

“The situation on the ground makes it so that we can’t” export any kind of military equipment, a Canadian official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Israel slammed the decision, with Foreign Minister Israel Katz saying on social media platform X that it “undermines Israel’s right to self-defence against Hamas terrorists”.