Blinken Seeks to Balance Aid for Palestinian Civilians Against Israeli Self-Defense
In West Bank stop, he faces call from Abbas for immediate halt to Israeli assault
RAMALLAH, West Bank—Secretary of State Antony Blinken worked to assure Palestinian leaders that the U.S. is committed to helping Palestinian civilians and was met with a demand for an immediate cease-fire in Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.
Blinken’s unannounced Sunday visit to the West Bank, to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, came hours after an Israeli airstrike hit a refugee camp in Gaza, killing at least 38 people according to the Hamas-controlled health authority. Israeli officials didn’t immediately comment on the explosion at the Al Maghazi refugee camp.
Blinken is pushing for what he has called a humanitarian pause in the Israeli operation in Gaza, to allow aid trucks to enter the besieged enclave. Israel has rejected any pause unless more than 200 hostages held by Hamas since its Oct. 7 attack on Israel are freed. Israel has allowed a small amount of food, water and medical supplies to enter Gaza.
Arab leaders whom Binken met on Saturday in Jordan also called for an immediate cease-fire.
Blinken on Sunday in the West Bank reiterated Washington’s position that Israel maintains the right to defend itself against militant attacks. Abbas called for an immediate cease-fire in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which it launched in response to the Hamas attack last month that Israeli authorities say killed at least 1,400 people.
“There are no words to describe the genocide and destruction that our Palestinian people in Gaza are facing at the hands of the Israeli war machine, with no regard for international law,” Abbas said after his meeting with Blinken.
The Israeli military says that it is targeting Hamas, but that the group hides fighters and military assets amid the population in Gaza, which can lead to civilian casualties. Israel blames those on Hamas and says that it is working within international law.
Blinken, who was already in the region for meetings with Arab and Israeli counterparts, met Abbas and his top advisers to discuss the spiraling humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and deepening concerns in Washington and across the region about growing violence in the West Bank. They discussed efforts to restore calm and stability there, including the need to stop extremist violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians and to hold perpetrators accountable.
U.S., Arab and other leaders worry that unrest triggered by the fighting in Gaza will spread around the region and deepen the crisis. Israel’s forceful military response to the Hamas attack has already sparked violence, protests and a wave of antisemitism internationally.
Abbas had been scheduled to meet with President Biden in Jordan last month, but the meeting was abruptly canceled after an explosion at a hospital in Gaza killed scores of civilians. Israel and the U.S. said that a failed rocket fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza was to blame for the attack, while Hamas and many Arab governments blamed Israel.
Israel on Sunday continued its bombardment of Gaza, saying its aircraft struck a Hamas military compound containing command-and-control centers. The Israel Defense Forces said it had carried out 2,500 strikes in the war so far.
Israel’s offensive is focused on the northern part of Gaza, and the Israeli military has told the population to evacuate the region. Israel has said southern Gaza is safer, but it is carrying out airstrikes there, too. The Al Maghazi refugee camp, which the Hamas-run health authorities said was struck by the IDF early Sunday, lies below that northern zone.
Dr. Medhat Abbas, a spokesman for the health ministry, said that 38 people were confirmed dead but that the count continued to rise. People were digging through rubble to find survivors and bodies, the ministry said. Photographs shared by doctors showed what they said were injured children arriving at a hospital after the explosion.
Since the war started, 9,488 people have been killed in Gaza, including 3,900 children, according to the health ministry. Roughly 2,000 more were missing, with most presumed to be dead beneath the rubble, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health authorities. The figures don’t distinguish between militants and civilians.
Giora Eiland, a retired Israeli general who is advising the country’s defense minister, told the official Army Radio that Israel remains far from defeating Hamas. “You don’t see hundreds of people surrendering,” he said. “You see very, very, sophisticated operations of the other side,” as the group successfully uses drones, antitank missiles and mortars, he said.
Separately, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday criticized his heritage minister, Amihai Eliyahu, after the cabinet member said that dropping an atomic bomb on the Gaza Strip was “one of the possibilities” for Israeli action. Netanyahu said Eliyahu’s statements “are not based in reality.”
The Israeli military said Sunday that it would let civilians in Gaza leave the north for the south during a four-hour window starting at 10 a.m. local time. Locals said they didn’t trust Israeli promises of safe passage after people who used the route during a short opening on Saturday saw bodies along the roadside. Israel said that Hamas militants had attacked its soldiers securing the corridor and that some civilians had been killed in the crossfire.
Israeli security forces continued to conduct raids in the West Bank. Two Palestinians were killed in the town of Abu Dis near East Jerusalem on Sunday, according to Palestinian authorities in the West Bank.
Israel said Sunday that it had detained 36 people from the West Bank overnight, among the 1,350 held in the West Bank since the war began. The Israeli military says the arrests are part of counterterrorism measures meant to stamp out Hamas’s West Bank network. Israel said that after an exchange of fire, a man named Nabil Haliba, who it described as a terrorist suspect, was killed in Abu Dis.
Fatima AbdulKarim, Suha Ma’ayeh, Shoshanna Solomon and Saleh al-Batati contributed to this article.
Write to Vivian Salama at vivian.salama@wsj.com, Saeed Shah at saeed.shah@wsj.com and Dov Lieber at dov.lieber@wsj.com