[ad_1]
On Monday, President Biden was weighing an extraordinary invitation to visit Israel, a grieving nation on the brink of an invading territory that has fallen into a desperate humanitarian crisis, with two million people trapped and critical supplies dwindling.
A Biden trip, on the eve of a possible escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, would be a notable gamble. Accepting the invitation would demonstrate American solidarity with Israel, signaling to its rivals such as Iran, Syria and Hezbollah that it has the power of the United States behind it at a time of growing anxiety about a regional war. But it would also link Biden and the United States to the bloodshed in Gaza.
More than 2,808 people have been killed and 10,850 injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Israeli airstrikes, in response to the October 7 terrorist attacks that are now considered the deadliest day in the nation’s history, have forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. And the Israeli siege has led to shortages of food, water and fuel, prompting warnings of a humanitarian calamity.
By nightfall it was unclear in Israel whether Biden would accept the invitation made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Doing so would also create intense security concerns: Sirens warning of rockets or missiles sounded repeatedly on Monday, driving lawmakers to safe rooms and soldiers and journalists to shelter as Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met with the prime minister and his war cabinet.
The invitation to Biden came as Israelis learned more about the attacks that, nine days ago, killed more than 1,400 people. The military said it now believes that Hamas, the group that controls the Gaza Strip, took 199 people hostage, nearly 50 more than previously thought.
“This will be a long war,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday after meeting with Blinken in Tel Aviv. “The price will be high, but we will win for Israel, for the Jewish people and for the values in which both countries believe.”
Israel’s retaliation for those attacks has already surpassed the scope of past conflicts with Hamas, which the United States and the European Union consider a terrorist group. Hundreds of airstrikes have hit Gaza, and Israel says so Has killed at least six senior Hamas leaders so far.
In addition to the thousands of dead and wounded, the Gaza Government Press Office said that at least 3,731 residential buildings including 10,500 housing units were completely demolished by the Israeli strikes.
Israel has also declared a “complete siege” to deprive the impoverished enclave of energy, food and water. The result, with Gaza’s borders closed by Israel and Egypt, is a desperate population crammed into an area roughly the size of Las Vegas.
Gaza’s Interior Ministry said no water had reached the enclave in 10 days, despite comments from the White House on Sunday that Israel had agreed to restore water to the southern part of the strip.
Israel has warned hundreds of thousands of people to leave northern Gaza for their safety. More than 400,000 people have gone to UN shelters and aid workers are under such pressure that the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said his staff could no longer help unless they received new supplies. .
Gaza is also running out of body bags, official Philippe Lazzarini told reporters in East Jerusalem on Sunday, echoing accounts of residents who are reopening old graves to bury the dead and burying bodies in groups.
Before Israel’s retaliatory strikes began on October 7, the day of the Hamas attack, Gaza was already in dire straits: under a 16-year blockade and largely dependent on Israel for power and Egypt for humanitarian aid. Now, Gaza’s three water desalination plants have stopped operations due to a lack of fuel and drinking water is running out, according to the United Nations, leading people to drink dirty water from wells despite the risk. of diseases.
Hospitals are filled with the injured and dead, and medical workers have said that moving many patients, including babies in incubators, would endanger their lives. And the bombs, which fall at an extraordinary rate, have fallen in densely populated areas of the strip.
Biden already made a visit to a country at war this year, taking a nearly 10-hour train from the Polish border to kyiv to show American support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion. But that trip, made under a cloak of secrecy, came in the wake of many European leaders’ trips to support Ukraine, unlike a trip to Israel, which would be fraught with implications for any efforts to ease the crisis.
Biden made his first significant public effort to curb Israel’s response to the Hamas attack on Sunday, warning Israel that another occupation of Gaza would be a “big mistake.”
Speaking to CBS’ “60 Minutes,” he said: “Hamas and the extremist elements of Hamas do not represent the entire Palestinian people.” However, he added that he was convinced that “the Israelis will do everything in their power to prevent the slaughter of innocent civilians.”
Biden has expressed strong support for Israel and said in the same interview that “eliminating extremists” was “a necessary requirement.”
But it has also tried to avoid a broader conflict through diplomacy and a show of military might. The White House has warned Iran against escalation through indirect messages with intermediaries in Qatar, Oman and China, its point supported by a pair of aircraft carriers heading toward the eastern Mediterranean.
Reflecting fears that the conflict could spill over into a regional war, Israel’s military said it would evacuate people living within two kilometers of the Lebanese border. Clashes have broken out in recent days between Israel and Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed group that dominates southern Lebanon, with both sides exchanging fire across the border.
And Blinken, the secretary of state, returned to Israel on Thursday for another round of talks in his marathon effort to broker deals, raising hopes that food and medicine could be brought into Gaza and that foreign passport holders could leave.
So far, those efforts have failed. Israel’s prime minister’s office dismissed rumors that it was allowing aid into Gaza from Egypt, saying in a statement: “Israel has not agreed to give any humanitarian aid to Hamas.”
And although the United States Embassy in Jerusalem said As American citizens were in Gaza on Monday to “get closer” to the Rafah crossing if they could do so safely, dozens of people who had gathered there, carrying what they could carry in suitcases, were left trapped.
Hanin Awkal, sitting in a car near the closed gates, said she had been visiting Gaza with her three children, including a newborn, and fled to Rafah after receiving an email from the US embassy in Jerusalem telling her to go. to the crossing, which is controlled by Hamas on the Gaza side.
There they found it closed. “They have never visited Gaza in their lives,” Ms. Awkal said of her children. “And, if you can imagine, the first time they visit us, this war happens.”
Soliman Hijjy contributed reports from the Gaza Strip, Anushka Patil of New York, and Ainara Tiefenthäler and Sarah Kerr From london.