Blinken tours Mideast as Israel-Hamas war pushes Gaza towards famine

GAZA STRIP: US top diplomat Antony Blinken touched down Wednesday in the Middle East to bolster international efforts to secure a truce in the Israel-Hamas war, as the threat of famine looms in besieged Gaza.

Global concern has mounted over the military conflict now in its sixth month, in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas in response to a deadly attack by its fighters on October 7.

The latest flare-ups included an Israeli assault on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital complex, an area crowded with thousands of patients and people seeking refuge where Israel says Palestinian militants are holed up.

Overnight bombings and battles across the territory killed 90 people, said the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which put the overall Palestinian death toll at close to 32,000.

AFPTV footage showed rescuers hunting through rubble amid a torrential rainstorm in Gaza city late on Tuesday.

Umm Abdullah Alwan, who lives in makeshift accommodation in the southern city of Rafah, told AFP her children “screamed in fear” when the storm hit because “we can’t tell the difference between the sound of rain and the sound of shelling”.

UN agencies have warned that Gaza’s 2.4 million people are on the brink of famine, and UN rights chief Volker Turk said Israel may be using “starvation as a method of war”.

The dire plight of Palestinians has pushed negotiators back to the table in Qatar to try to thrash out a temporary truce and a deal to free the remaining hostages held in the Gaza Strip.

The United States, long Israel’s top ally, has also ratcheted up its diplomatic efforts and increasingly voiced concern over humanitarian issues.

US Secretary of State Blinken, who touched down in regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia on Wednesday afternoon, has warned that Gaza’s “entire population” is suffering “severe levels of acute food insecurity”.

He will meet government leaders in Israel on Friday to discuss the release of hostages and humanitarian aid, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.