Blinken arrives in Israel to contain war as deaths in Gaza and attacks in Lebanon rise

The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, arrived in Israel on Monday night with the arduous mission of containing the war in Gaza: both the rampant toll of casualties, which already exceeds 23,000 dead in three months of conflict ( 1% of the Gazan population), as hostilities spread throughout the region. Upon landing at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport, he was greeted by the news that nearly 250 Palestinians had died in the attacks recorded during the previous 24 hours, the highest number in a week. The echo of the intensification of Israeli bombings in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah targets was also still echoing, in which at least eight Shiite militiamen have been killed since Saturday, including Wisam al Tawilk, commander of the elite Radwan force, responsible for launching rockets into northern Israel.

Blinken, who has just toured the main capitals of the Middle East, and still has to visit the West Bank and Egypt to complete his diplomatic tour, is also received in Israel without a clear response from the Government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington's demands on the future of the Palestinian enclave after the conflict. Since Friday, Israel has been announcing plans for a post-war in which the Palestinians would only have limited administration over the coastal enclave, which will remain under Israeli military control.

The army has considered dismantled the military structure in the north of the Strip, devastated after weeks of fighting and from where more than a million civilians, almost all of its inhabitants, have fled. His chief spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, declared to The New York Times hours before Blinken's arrival that the Armed Forces had begun “a new, less intense phase” in the invasion of Gaza, with fewer troops on the ground and fewer aerial bombardments. Shortly after, the Gaza Ministry of Health reported the death of 247 Palestinians, the deadliest toll so far this year, in the Israeli attacks recorded between noon on Sunday and Monday.

Tens of thousands of Israeli reservists are being demobilized as large-scale military operations in the north end. Last Friday, the Minister of Defense, former general Yoav Gallant, announced the launch of the third and final phase of the war, in which troops will concentrate on attacking specific objectives in the center and south of the Strip, where hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the conflict are crowded together.

Stop “metastasis”

Blinken deplored on Sunday in Jordan “the tragedy” suffered by Gazan civilians in a war that is on the way to experiencing a “metastasis” in Lebanon, the West Bank or the Red Sea. Internal divisions in the emergency government that decides on the conflict in Israel seem to have prevented the approval of the so-called “morning after plan” presented by the Minister of Defense. Radical ministers, such as the ultranationalist Itamar Ben Gvir, have proposed “encouraging” the Palestinians of Gaza to leave for other countries and to reinstate the Jewish settler settlements that were demolished in 2005 in the enclave. Other centrist ministers, led by former general Benny Gantz, are boycotting Cabinet sessions while being asked to leave by the opposition leader, former prime minister Yair Lapid.

Military spokesman Hagari also warned in an interview with The New York Times that if a diplomatic solution is not reached for Hezbollah to withdraw from the area closest to Lebanon's border with Israel, combat aviation will be limited to “copy and paste” the strategy used against Hamas in Gaza. After the attack with more than 60 rockets that caused serious damage to the Maron Air Control Center in the border area on Saturday, Israeli combat aviation has responded with waves of bombings.

On the same northern front, Prime Minister Netanyahu this Monday harangued soldiers from the area, who remain at their posts while their relatives have been evacuated away from the range of the rockets fired from Lebanon. “Hezbollah already made a mistake in [la guerra] 2006, and he is going to commit it again now,” Netanyahu warned.

In the Palestinian Strip, nearly 90% of the population has been displaced from their homes, while the last hospitals in service in the center and south of the territory are being evacuated due to the proximity of the fighting. The World Health Organization has also reported the departure of 600 patients admitted to the Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, in the central area of ​​the enclave. Some 8,000 wounded are in Rafah waiting to be treated in Egypt. More than a million people are also threatened by famine, the Israeli peace NGO B'Tselem warned this Friday.

The army, meanwhile, claimed that it had discovered an underground medium-range rocket manufacturing plant in the El Bureij refugee camp, south of the capital of the Strip. “The fighting will continue during 2024 in Gaza,” Rear Admiral Hagari has limited himself to confirming without clarifying the duration of the conflict.

The war seems far from having entered a new phase in Gaza, as military spokesmen assure in the face of the increasing number of fatalities and the desperation of thousands of wounded who can no longer be treated in hospitals. The offensive now looms over Khan Younis (the largest urban area in the south) and Rafah, on the border wall against which displaced people are crowding. More than 65,000 homes have been destroyed in three months of war and another 300,000 have suffered significant damage. Half a million Gazans will have nowhere to return when the fighting ends. The lack of food and water, medicine and warm clothing already threatens the rest of the population.

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