US to call on Israel to implement humanitarian pauses in Gaza

GAZA/JERUSALEM: Top US diplomat Antony Blinken was due in Israel on Friday to call for localised pauses in fighting to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza as Israel said it surrounded the Palestinian enclave’s biggest city and the focus of its drive to annihilate Hamas.

With the conflict nearing the end of its fourth week, US Secretary of State Blinken was due to visit Israel for the second time in a month to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel’s military battled Hamas.

“We’re at the height of the battle. We’ve had impressive successes and have passed the outskirts of Gaza City. We are advancing,” Netanyahu said in a statement after the military said it had encircled the seaside enclave’s main city.

As Blinken left Washington for the Middle East, he said he would discuss concrete steps to minimise harm to civilians in Gaza. The White House, meanwhile, said any pauses in fighting should be temporary and localised, and insisted they would not stop Israel defending itself.

Mounting casualties among Palestinian civilians, along with acute shortages of food, water, medicine and fuel, have intensified calls by global leaders for a pause in fighting or a ceasefire.

Gaza health authorities say at least 9,061 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its assault on the enclave of 2.3 million people in retaliation for attacks by Hamas on southern Israel.

A group of independent United Nations experts warned Palestinians there are at “grave risk of genocide”.

“We call on Israel and its allies to agree to an immediate ceasefire. We are running out of time,” the group of U.N. special rapporteurs said in a statement.

Israel says Hamas killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 240 hostages in the attack on Oct. 7, the deadliest day of its 75-year-old history.

The White House said on Thursday it was looking into a series of pauses in the conflict.

“What we’re trying to do is explore the idea of as many pauses as might be necessary to continue to get aid out and to continue to work to get people out safely, including hostages,” US national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.