Blinken travels to Middle East in new bid to reach Gaza truce
The head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, travels to the Middle East on Wednesday in a new attempt to reach a truce in the Gaza Strip, after more than five months of war between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas.
Blinken is due to arrive in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and will travel to Egypt on Thursday.
Negotiations between "technical teams" are continuing in Qatar, according to a close source, following a shift in Hamas' position that opened the door to a ceasefire after it had demanded a permanent ceasefire in vain.
Israeli shelling continues and has killed 104 people in the past 24 hours, according to the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
The head of the Palestinian Islamist movement, Ismail Haniyeh, accused Israel on Tuesday of "sabotaging" negotiations after the Israeli army claimed it had killed dozens of fighters in an operation against the enclave's largest hospital, Al Shifa.
The army said on Wednesday it had killed 90 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters in and around the medical facility and arrested "more than 300 suspects".
The war erupted on 7 October with the Hamas attack on southern Israel, which left an estimated 1,160 people were killed, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.
The Islamist movement also kidnapped some 250 people, 130 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, and 33 of whom are reportedly dead, according to Israel.
In retaliation, Israel launched an air and ground offensive against Gaza, with the aim of "annihilating" Hamas, which has so far left 31,923 people dead, the vast majority of them civilians, according to the latest balance sheet of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, which is governed by the Palestinian movement.
Famine in the war
NGOs and UN agencies continue to warn of the imminent risk of famine in the territory, especially in the north, where more than 300,000 people live.
The US has asked its ally Israel to allow more humanitarian aid to enter.
The US secretary of state reiterated on Tuesday that the entire population of Gaza suffers "severe levels of acute food insecurity".
"This is the first time that an entire population has been so classified," he said during a visit to the Philippines.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said Israel's blocking of aid "could be tantamount to the use of famine as a method of warfare".
Blinken said he would address in his meetings "efforts to bring about an immediate ceasefire to secure the release of all remaining hostages" as well as "intensified international efforts to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza".
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant will travel to Washington next week as the US presses Israel to prevent a ground offensive in the southernmost city of Rafah, where about 1.5 million Palestinians are crowded, according to the UN.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said he was sending a delegation "at the request of US President Joe Biden" to discuss the operation announced by Israel.
"Cries of fear"
Netanyahu assured that "we are determined to complete the elimination of these battalions in Rafah, and there is no way to do it without a ground incursion".
The city is already under bombardment. AFPTV footage on Tuesday shows residents searching through the rubble after another night of attacks.
Torrential rains overnight aggravated the deplorable situation in the area. Oum Abdullah Alwan said his children were "screaming in fear" because "we can't distinguish the sound of the rain from the sound of the shelling".
"The entire population of Gaza is currently dependent on food aid, but more than half of the population is living under what we call a 'critical hunger level'," said Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
The "main obstacle" to humanitarian access to Gaza is "the absence of political will", he added.
Since the start of the war, Israel has maintained a total siege of the enclave and controls all aid trying to enter. This reduces the number of trucks entering the territory from Egypt.
Several countries have airlifted supplies and a sea corridor has been opened from Cyprus, but all insist that these shipping routes cannot replace land routes.