Blinken urges Israel to create safe zones in Gaza when fighting resumes

Blinken urges Israel to create safe zones in Gaza when fighting resumes
Blinken urges Israel to create safe zones in Gaza when fighting resumes

Hello and welcome to the details of Blinken urges Israel to create safe zones in Gaza when fighting resumes and now with the details

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a press conference in Tel Aviv on November 30, 2023. — AFP pic

TEL AVIV, Dec 1 — Visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday urged Israel to create safe zones for Palestinian civilians in Gaza before it resumes “major military operations” in the Hamas-ruled territory.

Speaking on the seventh day of a pause in fighting between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, Blinken also called for a further extension of the truce which included hostage and prisoner swaps and aid deliveries into the besieged Gaza Strip.

“Clearly, we want to see this process continue to move forward,” he told reporters in Tel Aviv at the end of a visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank.

“We want an eighth day and beyond,” he said.

Advertisement

The pause, due to expire early Friday unless an agreement to extend it is reached, has allowed the release of scores of Israeli and foreign hostages taken by Hamas in its deadly raid on southern Israel in return for Palestinian prisoners.

Blinken was on his third trip to the region since violence erupted on October 7 with the Hamas attack that according to Israeli officials saw around 240 people kidnapped and left 1,200 dead, mostly civilians.

In response, Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas and unleashed an air and ground military campaign that the Hamas government says has killed more than 15,000 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians.

Advertisement

Blinken told reporters Israel “must put in place humanitarian civilian protection plans that minimise further casualties of innocent Palestinians”.

This, he said, should be “by clearly and precisely designating areas and places in southern and central Gaza, where they can be safe and out of the line of fire”.

He said this meant avoiding further “significant displacement of civilians inside Gaza” as well as “damage to life (or) critical infrastructure like hospitals, like power stations, like water facilities”.

“And it means giving civilians who have been displaced in southern Gaza the choice to return to the north as soon as conditions permit.”

There should be no “enduring internal displacement”, he said.

Truce ‘producing results’

Blinken said Israel was “capable of neutralising the threat posed by Hamas while minimising harm to innocent men, women and children. And it has an obligation to do so”.

He stressed “the imperative of the United States that the massive loss of civilian life and displacement of the scale that we saw in northern Gaza not be repeated in the south”.

Earlier Blinken told Israeli leaders the truce was “producing results” and should continue.

“We have seen over the last week the very positive development of hostages coming home, being reunited with their families,” Blinken said in his meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

“It’s also enabled an increase in humanitarian assistance to go to innocent civilians in Gaza who need it desperately.

“So this process is producing results. It’s important, and we hope that it can continue.”

In a statement released by his office, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had raised with Blinken a deadly shooting attack in Jerusalem on Thursday that was later claimed by Hamas, saying “nothing will stop us” from destroying the group.

“We will continue this war until we achieve the three goals: freeing all of our hostages, completely eliminating Hamas and ensuring that no threat like this will ever come from Gaza again,” Netanyahu said.

After the meeting, Blinken travelled by armoured convoy to the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank city of Ramallah for talks with president Mahmud Abbas.

The two “spoke about the urgent need for measures to improve security and freedom for Palestinians in the West Bank”, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.

Blinken reiterated “that the United States remains committed to advancing tangible steps for a Palestinian state”, the statement said.

Violence has surged in the West Bank — occupied by Israel since 1967 — in tandem with the Israel-Hamas war. According to the Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry, nearly 240 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers since October 7. — AFP

These were the details of the news Blinken urges Israel to create safe zones in Gaza when fighting resumes for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.

It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at Malay Mail and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.

PREV ‘The American people have chosen’: London mayor Sadiq Khan downplays past Trump feud, focuses on strengthening US-UK relationship
NEXT Island-wide blackout hits Puerto Rico on New Year’s Eve

Author Information

I am Jeff King and I’m passionate about business and finance news with over 4 years in the industry starting as a writer working my way up into senior positions. I am the driving force behind Al-KhaleejToday.NET with a vision to broaden the company’s readership throughout 2016. I am an editor and reporter of “Financial” category. Address: 383 576 Gladwell Street Longview, TX 75604, USA Phone: (+1) 903-247-0907 Email: [email protected]