U.N. Secretary General António Guterres visited Egypt’s border with Gaza on Saturday, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to send forces into the packed city of Rafah near that border, despite warnings from U.S. and world leaders.
The U.N. chief reiterated pleas for a cease-fire in Gaza, after the U.N. Security Council failed to pass a U.S.-sponsored resolution on Friday that called for a cease-fire. Russia and China vetoed the measure, which marked the first time the United States directly called for an “immediate” cease-fire after vetoing earlier resolutions itself.
The proposed measure echoed growing international outrage over the humanitarian catastrophe in Rafah and calls for a cease-fire, as U.S. frustrations with Netanyahu mount.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli leaders confronted each other Friday over the war in Gaza, as the top U.S. diplomat called on Israel not to invade Rafah — where Israel’s offensive has already forced much of Gaza’s besieged population to flee.
Netanyahu has showed little sign of relenting to pressure from world leaders against the planned incursion, even with increasingly sharp criticism from Washington, Israel’s main military backer and ally. The Israeli leader said after meeting Blinken that there was “no way” to defeat Hamas militants without entering Rafah, and declared that “if needed, we’ll do it by ourselves.”
Across the border from Gaza on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, Guterres described blocked aid trucks as a “moral outrage” on Saturday, as aid groups warn that famine risks spreading in the Palestinian enclave. He urged Israel to allow “total, unfettered” access to humanitarian supplies throughout Gaza.
In a joint statement on Saturday, humanitarian groups said they have witnessed aid, including U.S.-funded assistance, being “consistently and arbitrarily denied, restricted, and impeded by the Israeli authorities.”
The statement by groups including the International Rescue Committee, Oxfam America and Save the Children US said aid has been held up by the “continued closure” of border crossings, as well as Israel’s “arbitrary, opaque and shifting” rules on what kind of aid can enter. Israel has maintained that it is not impeding aid to Gazans.
“Our organizations and partners have experienced these blockages of aid and attacks first hand, and they are costing Palestinian lives,” the statement said.
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Da Barnea, head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, is joining cease-fire talks in Doha, along with senior negotiators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States, including CIA Director William J. Burns. In recent days, Blinken, who also met with families of hostages held by Hamas, said gaps were “narrowing” in negotiations for a deal to halt the fighting and secure the release of hostages — but he added that there was still “difficult work to get there.”
Israel said its raid of al-Shifa Hospital continued Saturday in Gaza City, as the days-long military operation provokes alarm from global health officials and residents in the enclave’s devastated north. The Israeli military, which said the raid was targeting Hamas, said its forces killed 170 militants and questioned 800 people. The Israeli operation at al-Shifa is the latest in a string of attacks that have damaged or shut major hospitals, pushing Gaza’s health system toward collapse, aid groups say.
Israel’s far-right finance minister announced the seizure of some 3.8 square miles of Palestinian territory in the occupied West Bank on Friday. The area marks the largest such land seizure since the 1993 Oslo accords, according to advocacy group Peace Now. The move would directly undermine diplomatic efforts to agree a path to Palestinian statehood, and was announced after Blinken spent recent days meeting with Arab leaders about a postwar plan for Gaza.
A group of 17 Democratic senators is calling on the Biden administration to reject Israel’s claims that it is not violating international law by restricting humanitarian aid for Gaza. This comes amid a growing debate in Washington over whether the United States should suspend arms transfers to Netanyahu’s government, The Washington Post reports.
At least 32,142 people have been killed and 74,412 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and says 251 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operation in Gaza.
Cate Brown, Alon Rom, Kareem Fahim and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.
