Three Months In, Western Diplomats Try to Stop Gaza War’s Spread

JERUSALEM/AMMAN/CAIRO Jan 7 (Reuters) – Top U.S and European diplomats sought ways on Sunday to keep the Gaza war from spreading further in the Middle East, but three months after the start of the conflict, more bloodshed underlined the difficulties they face.

Gun battles intensified in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis as well as in districts in the centre of the densely populated Palestinian enclave.

Smoke rose from the sites of Israeli bombing on Sunday morning east and north of Khan Younis. Israeli strikes on houses in Khan Younis killed 50 people, health officials in Nasser Hospital said on Sunday.

Israeli aircraft fired on Palestinian militants who had attacked troops in the West Bank, the military said, and Palestinian health officials said six Palestinians were killed in the strike.

An Israeli border police officer was killed and others wounded when their vehicle was hit by an explosive device during operations in the West Bank city of Jenin, the military and police said.

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The West Bank had already seen its highest levels of unrest in decades during the 18 months before the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the militant Hamas group that rules Gaza.

Confrontations in the West Bank have risen sharply since Israeli forces launched their retaliatory offensive on Gaza, laying waste to the strip as they seek to wipe out Hamas. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers and settlers over the past weeks in the West Bank and security forces have made thousands of arrests.

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, were on separate trips to the region to try to quell spillover from the war into Lebanon, the West Bank and Red Sea shipping lanes.

“We have an intense focus on preventing this conflict from spreading,” said Blinken, who was in Jordan on Sunday and will also travel to Israel, the West Bank, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt during his fourth trip to the region.

Jordan’s King Abdullah urged Blinken to use Washington’s influence over Israel to press it for an immediate ceasefire, a palace statement said, warning him of the “catastrophic repercussions” of Israel’s continued military campaign.

Blinken, who visited Turkey and Greece at the start of his trio, will use the visits to press hesitant Muslim nations in the region to prepare to play a role in the reconstruction, governance and security of Gaza if and when Israel achieves its goal of eliminating Hamas, said a senior State Department official.

The fighting has displaced most of the enclave’s 2.3 million population, with many homes and civilian infrastructure left in ruins amid acute shortages of food, water and medicine.

“We hope that … Blinken looks at us with an eye of mercy, ends the war, ends the misery we are living in. We are a people that must live a free and dignified life,” said one woman, Um Mohamad Al-Arqan, standing by the tent where she is living.

‘FIGHTING WILL CONTINUE’

The Oct. 7 Hamas rampage in southern Israel killed 1,200 people and 240 were taken hostage, according to Israeli officials. More than 100 hostages are still believed to be held by Hamas.

Israel’s offensive has so far killed 22,722 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health officials on Saturday.

Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari gave a roundup of the offensive on Saturday, saying Israeli forces had completed dismantled Hamas’ “military framework” in northern Gaza and had killed around 8,000 militants in that area.

“We are now focused on dismantling Hamas in the centre of and south of the (Gaza) strip,” he said in an online briefing.

“Fighting will continue during 2024. We are operating according to a plan to achieve the war’s goals, to dismantle Hamas in the north and south,” Hagari said.

Palestinian health ministry casualty figures do not differentiate between fighters and civilians, but the ministry has said that 70% of Gaza’s dead are women and people under 18.

Israel has faced international pressure over the mounting death toll and humanitarian crisis in Gaza but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government appears set to press on.

Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip killed gunmen loading weapons into a vehicle and dismantled a launch site that fired rockets towards Israel, the Israeli military said.

Hamas’ armed wing said its fighters destroyed a troop carrier in Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.