Accessibility links

Breaking News

Blinken Visits Iraq and Cyprus as Gaza Fighting Continues


FILE - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken departs the International Zone via helicopter after meeting Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani in Baghdad, Iraq, November 5, 2023.
FILE - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken departs the International Zone via helicopter after meeting Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani in Baghdad, Iraq, November 5, 2023.

JERUSALEM - Fighting raged in Gaza Sunday for the 30th day since Hamas militants stormed across the Israeli border and, according to Israeli officials, killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and abducted over 240 others.

Since then, Israel has relentlessly bombarded the Gaza Strip and sent in ground troops, with the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory saying 9,770 people have been killed, around two-thirds of them women and children.

Here are key developments from the past 24 hours:

- Blinken meets regional leaders -

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a surprise visit Sunday to Baghdad where he met Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani to discuss the risks of escalation in Israel's war with Hamas.

The visit comes amid ongoing rocket and drone attacks targeting Iraqi bases where American troops are deployed.

FILE - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) shakeshands with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas at the Palestinian Muqataa Presidential Compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah on November 5, 2023, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas.
FILE - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) shakeshands with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas at the Palestinian Muqataa Presidential Compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah on November 5, 2023, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas.

Earlier, Blinken was in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who decried Israel's "genocide" in the Gaza Strip amid its war on Hamas militants there.

He also visited Cyprus and met President Nikos Christodoulides to discuss the possibility of a maritime aid corridor from the island to Gaza.

- Gaza split in two -

The Israeli army said Sunday its land assault on the Gaza Strip had split the Palestinian territory in two, with "significant" strikes continuing in its war against Hamas.

Israeli forces "have encircled Gaza City... Now there exists a south Gaza and a north Gaza," military spokesman Daniel Hagari said.

Gaza's Hamas government reported "intense bombings" on Sunday evening around several hospitals in the north of the Gaza Strip, shortly after telecommunications were cut for a third time.

The health ministry said more than 30 people were killed when Israel bombed the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza late Saturday.

An Israeli military spokesperson said they were looking into whether its troops were operating in the area at the time.

- Gaza evacuations again suspended -

Gaza's Hamas government suspended the evacuation of foreign passport holders to Egypt for a second day in a row Sunday after Israel refused to allow some injured Palestinians to be evacuated, Egyptian and Palestinian officials said.

The White House said on Sunday more than 300 Americans, US residents and their families have been evacuated from Gaza in prior days.

- Lebanon, Israel trade deadly fire -

Four relatives of a journalist were killed on Sunday in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, the official Lebanese news agency said, adding that the journalist was also wounded.

FILE - Footage from Al-Mayadeen Tv shows emergency teams working at the scene where Hezbollah says an Israeli strike killed three children, in southern Lebanon, November 5, 2023.
FILE - Footage from Al-Mayadeen Tv shows emergency teams working at the scene where Hezbollah says an Israeli strike killed three children, in southern Lebanon, November 5, 2023.

Shortly afterwards, Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement said it fired Katyusha rockets at the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona in response to this "heinous crime."

Israel's military said late Sunday that one civilian was killed in a strike by Hezbollah.

- Israeli minister reprimanded -

Israel's government on Sunday reprimanded an ultranationalist junior minister who advocated in an interview dropping a nuclear bomb on war-torn Gaza, labeling his comments "disconnected from reality."

Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu was also suspended from government meetings "until further notice," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said, stressing that Israel was seeking to spare "non-combatants."

Forum

XS
SM
MD
LG