Israel hits south Gaza as top US diplomat seeks de-escalation

Palestinian Territories – AFP

Israel hit targets in south Gaza and across its border with Lebanon, the army said Monday ahead of a visit by the top US diplomat who is seeking to avert a wider war.

Gaza’s health ministry said 73 dead and 99 wounded had arrived at Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah city over the previous 24 hours.

In the southern city of Khan Yunis, troops and warplanes overnight Sunday-Monday struck 30 targets which a military statement described as “significant”.

– Hostage families in Qatar –

On his fourth regional trip since the war began, Antony Blinken is due in Saudi Arabia after talks earlier Monday in UAE capital Abu Dhabi.

He will meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the desert city of Al-Ula, a US official said on condition of anonymity. Early in the war, Riyadh announced it had suspended talks with Israel on normalising ties.

Blinken’s visit comes alongside that of other top Western diplomats trying to stop the conflict from spreading and to boost desperately needed aid to Gazans.

In Qatar on Sunday, Blinken warned that the violence could “easily metastasize” into a regional conflict.

Over the weekend Qatari officials also hosted relatives of Israelis still held in Gaza, said Ruby Chen, father of 19-year-old captive Itay Chen. The release of more Israelis “serves the bigger objective, as they see it, which is creating regional stability”, Chen said on returning to Tel Aviv.

Qatar earlier helped mediate a one-week truce that saw dozens of Israelis freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Talks with Hamas on a new truce are “ongoing”, the emirate’s prime minister said.

Washington has said Blinken will press Israel on its compliance with international humanitarian law and ask for “immediate measures” to boost aid to Gaza.

“Our home and my son’s home have been destroyed and we have 20 people martyred in our family. I don’t know where we will go even if I survive,” said Gaza resident Nabil Fathi, 51.

– Journalists killed –

Two journalists working for the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network were killed on Sunday when their car was struck in southern Gaza’s city of Rafah, near the border with Egypt, the broadcaster said.

They were named as Mustafa Thuria, a video stringer who also worked for AFP and other media organisations, and Hamza Wael Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief who had been wounded in an earlier strike, after his wife and two other children were killed in an Israeli bombardment.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 79 journalists and media professionals, the vast majority Palestinian, have been killed since the war began.

Al-Aqsa hospital, which received the additional wounded on Monday, is one of Gaza’s few still partly functioning, but on Sunday the UN reported “sickening scenes of people of all ages being treated on blood-streaked floors and in chaotic corridors”.

Live AFPTV images on Monday showed black smoke rising over Gaza’s central and southern areas, with explosions sounding.