Blinken mentioned the Israeli authorities had agreed to “a transparent plan” to avert civilian deaths earlier than it resumed its assault on southern Gaza, amid intensifying U.S. strain on Tel Aviv to scale back the warfare’s grave humanitarian toll.
By Blinken’s account, he was forceful with Israeli leaders and obtained assurances that they might change how they wage the warfare.
Talking on the sidelines of the U.N. local weather convention Friday in Dubai, Blinken blamed Hamas for ending the momentary truce. The militant group “started firing rockets earlier than the pause had ended,” he mentioned, and “reneged on commitments it made when it comes to releasing sure hostages.”
Blinken praised Israeli efforts to guard Palestinian civilians, “together with ensuring that they’ve the knowledge they want, and that there are methods to accommodate them.”
The Gaza Well being Ministry reported Friday that 178 Palestinians had died after hostilities resumed. Sufferers with extreme accidents overwhelmed what was left of Gaza’s well being system, medical officers mentioned.
“Hospitals have reached their darkest hour but,” mentioned Suhaib al-Hams, director of the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah. “There are not any empty beds.”
Not less than 90 p.c of the wounded sufferers that the hospital obtained Friday wanted amputations, he mentioned. Docs additionally noticed sufferers with extreme burns, inner bleeding and head trauma.
“If it stays like this, the hospitals can not maintain,” al-Hams mentioned. “All of them shall be out of service.”
The edges agreed to the pause and prolonged it twice to permit the change of hostages kidnapped from Israel throughout raids by Hamas and different fighters Oct. 7 for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and to extend the quantity of humanitarian help coming into Gaza.
Nationwide Safety Council spokesman John Kirby mentioned Friday that the administration would “proceed to stay deeply engaged” in making an attempt to reinstate the pause in order that extra hostages could also be launched and extra help could attain Gazans.
“We’re working actually by the hour” to renew the truce, he mentioned. “We’ve each expectation that one other pause may very well be executed.”
The Israel Protection Forces mentioned Friday that it had notified the households of 4 extra hostages of their deaths and returned the physique of a fifth to Israel.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for the IDF, confirmed early Friday that preventing had resumed in Gaza. “We’re again at it,” he mentioned. “Now we’re getting ready for the following stage — southern Gaza.”
Together with bombs, Israel dropped leaflets in southern Gaza, the place most individuals within the north have fled within the two months of warfare, warning that they had been now in fight zones. The IDF additionally introduced an interactive map to inform residents when to go away their areas — a part of its effort to scale back civilian casualties. The enclave has struggled with web connectivity.
Authorities spokesman Eylon Levy blamed Hamas for the resumption in preventing.
“Sadly, Hamas determined to terminate the pause by failing to launch all of the kidnapped ladies because it was obligated to do,” he informed reporters. He mentioned the group didn’t present a full record of hostages it meant to launch Friday. “So having chosen to carry on to our ladies, Hamas will now take the mom of all thumpings.”
Hamas countered that it was Israel that ended the truce when it rejected a deal by which the militants would launch aged male Israeli hostages and the our bodies of three Israeli hostages, together with kids from the Bibas household, in change for aged Palestinian prisoners.
“The Israelis refused, and it’s clear that they’ve decided,” Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official in Beirut, informed The Washington Publish in a voice message. “The aggression in opposition to the Gaza Strip preceded the resumption of the preventing, so the one who ended the negotiation scenario and thwarted all of the efforts made was the Israeli facet.”
Qatar, which has been internet hosting the talks over the pause in preventing for the previous weeks, expressed its “deep remorse on the resumption of the Israeli aggression in opposition to the Gaza Strip” and mentioned the renewed bombing of Gaza complicates the still-ongoing mediation.
A U.S. official, talking on the situation of anonymity to debate closed-door talks, urged that the breakdown got here as a result of Hamas could have launched all or almost the entire hostages it seems to be keen to launch for now. “We’re on the finish of the road.”
Israel mentioned Friday that there have been nonetheless 137 hostages in Gaza, the overwhelming majority of them males, together with many troopers. Hamas is claimed to be calling for extra prisoners to be launched than the three-Palestinians-for-each-hostage ratio of the pause.
Throughout the week-long pause, Hamas launched greater than 100 Israeli and worldwide hostages, most of them ladies and youngsters, and Israel launched 240 Palestinian prisoners, who had been ladies and teenagers, lots of them detained for rock-throwing and incitement.
Hamas and different fighters streamed out of Gaza early on Oct. 7 to assault Israeli cities close to the enclave. They killed round 1,200 folks and took 240 extra as hostages. Israel has responded with a army marketing campaign that leaders say is aimed toward eradicating Hamas from Gaza.
For the reason that Hamas assault, Israel has detained round 3,400 Palestinians, based on the Palestinian Fee for Detainees and ex-Prisoners’ Affairs. The Gaza Well being Ministry mentioned final week that the Israeli army marketing campaign had induced greater than 13,300 deaths, however communication challenges and no-go areas have made it unimaginable to supply a whole rely.
Reem, a mom in Gaza Metropolis’s central Rimal neighborhood, a spotlight of the preventing, heard the increase of tank hearth Friday morning and sprang into motion.
“Once we heard the sounds, we informed the children to arrange their issues in case we needed to go,” she informed The Publish by telephone. She spoke on the situation that her final title be withheld to guard her privateness.
“We informed them to maneuver away from the home windows,” she mentioned. “The entire issues that we turned accustomed to through the warfare, we returned to that right now.”
The household moved right down to a neighbor’s ground-floor house, hoping it will be safer. As she spoke, two blasts boomed within the background.
Reem had not anticipated Israel’s air-and-ground assault resume Friday. “Sadly, we had hope till the final minute that the cease-fire could be prolonged,” she mentioned. “We hadn’t ready ourselves psychologically for the return to warfare.”
Whereas help elevated through the pause, the World Meals Program warned that it was not almost sufficient to stave off the rising threat of famine and hunger.
James Elder, a spokesman for the U.N. kids’s company, UNICEF, informed The Publish that the bombardment in southern Gaza was fixed.
“I can hear assaults in all places, airstrikes,” Elder mentioned in a phone interview from the enclave. “It’s relentless,” he mentioned, and streets had been “emptying out.” He had simply left the al-Nasser hospital, which he mentioned was “on life help.” There was not sufficient medical workers and never sufficient area for the flood of sufferers. The hospital was at “200 p.c capability,” he mentioned.
Throughout the pause, Elder joined help convoys touring to northern Gaza. “The best way up is simply devastation,” he mentioned. He noticed properties and house blocks that had been destroyed, trash piling up within the streets and the “surprised faces of those that determined to remain,” he mentioned.
Because the Israeli offensive roared again into operation, he mentioned, folks in southern Gaza had been “terrified about having to maneuver.”
“There’s nowhere to maneuver to,” he mentioned. “It’s not a cliché to say that nowhere is protected.”
In line with U.S. officers, Israel intends to designate some neighborhoods in southern Gaza as “deconfliction areas.” One official mentioned that Israeli operations within the south would resemble a counterterrorism operation in some methods and that the Israelis had dedicated to not attacking the city areas of Khan Younis and Rafah with the depth with which they attacked Gaza Metropolis, the place greater than 60 p.c of residences are estimated to be broken or destroyed.
But on Friday, the IDF dropped leaflets on Khan Younis declaring the town a “harmful fight zone” and directed residents to maneuver additional south to Rafah close to the Egyptian border.
Birnbaum reported from Dubai, Fahim reported from Beirut, and Sales space reported from London. Paul Schemm in London, Mohamad El Chamaa in Beirut and Hazem Balousha in Amman contributed to this report.