U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday to urge protections for civilians in the fighting with Hamas, as Israeli troops tightened their encirclement of Gaza City.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated Friday that Israel has the right and obligation to defend itself as it continues to pummel the Gaza Strip with an air and ground assault.
"Israel has not only the right but the obligation to defend itself... to make sure that this October 7 never happens again," Blinken told journalists as he met Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv.
More than 9,200 people have been killed in Gaza, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said.
The situation in the West Bank is "alarming and urgent", the United Nations said Friday, noting in particular the violence carried out by Israeli settlers against the Palestinian population.
While much attention has been focused on the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, "the situation in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is alarming and urgent", UN human rights office spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell told a briefing in Geneva.
Israel on Friday began sending thousands of Palestinian workers back to Gaza who had been stranded inside Israel since its war with Hamas erupted, a Gaza border official said.
"Thousands of workers who were blocked in Israel since October 7 have been brought back" through the Karem Abu Salem crossing between southern Gaza and Israel, Hisham Adwan, head of the Palestinian territory's crossings, told AFP. AFPTV footage showed groups of workers entering the crossing on Friday morning.
After two Israeli airstrikes flattened an entire block of apartment buildings in the Bureij refugee camp and damaged two U.N. schools-turned-shelters; tiny, motionless bodies lay flat against the hospital’s hard floor.
A small boy bled out onto the tiles as medics tried to staunch the flow from his head. A baby lay next to him with an oxygen mask strapped on — covered in ash, his chest struggled to rise and fall. Their father sat beside them.
As Israeli troops encircle Gaza City and press ahead with a ground offensive, the death toll is expected to grow.
In Bureij, which is home to an estimated 46,000 people, Palestinians hacked at the rubble, searching for survivors.
As the war intensified, Arab leaders moved from condemning violence and calling for peace to more pointed criticism of Israel’s attacks in Gaza.
Tens of thousands have taken to the street in Rabat, Baharin and other Moroccan cities in support of the Palestinians.
In Egypt, which has had ties with Israel for decades, protesters rallied in cities and at universities, at times chanting “Death to Israel.”
“Israeli acts of escalation are in contradiction with international humanitarian law and common human values," Morocco’s Foreign Ministry said in a Thursday statement.