Blinken in Israel, Expected To Meet Netanyahu As IDF says Gaza Totally Surrounded

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Tel Aviv on Friday to talk to Israeli officials about the war against Hamas in Gaza as Israeli forces say they have surrounded the Palestinian enclave.

Blinken is expected to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials as Israel intensifies its military operations in Gaza.

Blinken is pushing for humanitarian pauses in the fighting and said before he left the U.S. that responding to the war is an "obligation."

"When I see a Palestinian child – a boy, a girl – pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building, that hits me in the gut as much as seeing a child from Israel or anywhere else," he said.

After the brief visit to Israel, Blinken will travel to Jordan to meet with Arab leaders who have expressed concern with Israel's military response to the Oct. 7 attacks.

Israeli military leaders say troops have completely encircled Gaza City.

Israeli forces are “fighting in a built-up, dense, complex area," said the military’s chief of staff, Herzi Halevy. Casualties were expected to rise as Israeli troops advanced in the city.

Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, said early Friday that its fighters battled Israeli troops in several areas in Gaza and claimed they killed four soldiers on the northern edge of the city of Beit Lahiya.

The Hamas military group also claimed to have destroyed several tanks with locally made anti-tank rockets.

President Joe Biden has called for a “humanitarian pause” in the fighting in order to arrange the evacuation of dual citizens and foreigners still trapped in Gaza as well as to try to secure the release of more than 240 hostages Hamas is holding and to increase humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians on Friday remained in the path of fighting in northern Gaza, despite Israel’s repeated calls for them to evacuate. 

In addition to the 9,061 Palestinians killed in the war, mostly women and minors, more than 32,000 people have been wounded, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

Roughly 800 people — including hundreds of Palestinians with foreign passports and dozens of injured — have been allowed to leave the Gaza Strip the past few days.

Israel has allowed more than 260 trucks carrying food and medicine through the crossing in Rafah but aid workers say much more is needed.

The border crossing was expected to reopen on Friday to allow more people with foreign passports to leave Gaza.

Israel launched the war in response to the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on southern Israelthat killed 1,400 people. Some 240 people were also taken hostage — most of whom are still believed to be held in the Gaza Strip. 

With the Associated Press.