Mourners held funeral prayers Wednesday morning outside a hospital in central Gaza for 28 people killed in three separate Israeli airstrikes on urban refugee camps the previous night. Associated Press footage showed mourners praying over the bodies wrapped in funeral shrouds, before they were taken away in donkey carts for burial.
As fighting rages on in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is determined to carry out a Rafah ground offensive, despite United States President Joe Biden’s misgivings.
Earlier, Qatari officials said they were “cautiously optimistic” following talks with Israel’s intelligence chief in Doha aimed at trying to reach a cease-fire. But, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said Tuesday that an Israeli ground operation in Rafah would set back any talks.
At least 31,819 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people in the surprise October 7 attack out of Gaza that triggered the war, and abducted another 250 people. Hamas is still believed to be holding some 100 people hostage, as well as the remains of 30 others.
Meanwhile, the US State Department said Wednesday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Israel this week as part of his sixth urgent mission to the Middle East since the Israelis’ war with Hamas began in October, as relations between the two countries have soured dramatically in recent weeks.
The visit comes amid a flurry of calls and planned visits between U.S. and Israeli officials and public airings of severe disagreements over the state of the conflict.
The State Department said the Israel stop would cap Blinken’s latest Mideast tour that started in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and will continue in Egypt on Thursday. The top U.S. diplomat will be in Tel Aviv on Friday after talks with Arab leaders and foreign ministers in Jeddah and Cairo focused on the war in Gaza.
Biden, facing a tough re-election campaign ahead of November’s presidential election, is under growing domestic pressure to rein in Israel’s military response to the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel.
During a phone call on Monday, their first in more than a month, Netanyahu agreed to send a high-level delegation to Washington to discuss plans, and the Pentagon said Tuesday that Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant would visit the U.S. capital next week.
In his talks in Jeddah, Cairo and Tel Aviv, Blinken is expected to focus on attempts to negotiate a cease-fire and hostage release deal, increase humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza by land, air and sea and plan for the territory’s post-conflict future.
Blinken will meet Egyptian officials as well as a six-member Arab committee that includes foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Morocco and the Palestinian Authority in Cairo on Thursday, according to an Egyptian diplomat.
(Source: AP)
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