Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday that Israel’s attack on the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis is intensifying.
One purpose of Blinken’s visit was to push Israeli officials to reduce the intensity of the onslaught on Gaza. Israel has said it’s scaling down operations in north Gaza but focusing on central and southern portions of the Strip, where most of Gaza’s Palestinian population is located.
According to The Times of Israel, Gallant briefed Blinken on the “changes in combat tactics” in the north and “emphasized that operations in the region of Khan Younis will intensify and continue until Hamas leadership is detected, and Israeli hostages return home safely.”
Israeli officials have publicly rebuffed concerns from the Biden administration since October 7, but the US has continued to provide unconditional military support for the slaughter in Gaza anyway, giving Israel little incentive to change what it’s doing. US officials have repeatedly affirmed that the administration is not considering leveraging aid or cutting Israel off.
Axios later reported that the only tangible thing Blinken achieved while in Israel was an agreement from Israel to allow UN officials to visit north Gaza to evaluate conditions for a future return of the around one million Palestinians who were forced to leave the area. But Israeli officials are saying Palestinians cannot return to the north until a new hostage deal is reached, and Israel recently killed one of Hamas’s negotiators who was based in Beirut, making that prospect much less likely.
Israeli airstrikes continued to pound Gaza while Blinken was in Israel, and according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 126 Palestinians were killed in the Strip on Tuesday. Over 23,000 Palestinians have been killed in the US-backed Israeli slaughter so far, including over 9,000 children.