US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Israel yesterday, as Israel intensified its attacks against northern Gaza, flattening another high-rise building and killing at least 12 Palestinians.
Rubio said ahead of the trip that he would be seeking answers from Israeli officials about how they see the way forward in Gaza following Israel’s attack on Hamas operatives in Qatar last week that upended efforts to broker an end to the conflict.
His two-day visit is also a show of support for the increasingly isolated Israel as the UN holds what is expected to be a contentious debate on commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state.
Photo: REUTERS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly opposes the recognition of a Palestinian state.
Rubio’s visit went ahead despite US President Donald Trump’s anger at Netanyahu over the Israeli strike against Hamas leaders in Doha, which Trump said the US was not notified of beforehand.
On Friday, Rubio and Trump met with Qatar’s prime minister to discuss the fallout from the Israeli operation. The dual, back-to-back meetings with Israel and Qatar illustrate how the Trump administration is trying to balance relations between key Middle East allies despite the attack’s widespread international condemnation.
Photo: AFP
The Doha attack also appears to have ended attempts to secure an Israel-Hamas ceasefire and the release of hostages ahead of the upcoming UN General Assembly session, at which the Gaza war is expected to be a primary focus.
At least 13 Palestinians were killed yesterday and dozens wounded in multiple Israeli strikes across Gaza, local hospitals said.
They said Israeli strikes targeted a vehicle near Shifa hospital and a roundabout in Gaza City, and a tent in the city of Deir al-Balah that killed at least six members of the same family.
Two parents, their three children and the children’s aunt were killed in that strike, according to al-Aqsa hospital.
The family was from the northern town of Beit Hanoun and arrived in Deir al-Balah last week after fleeing their shelter in Gaza City
The Israeli military did not have immediate comment on the strikes.
As part of its expanding operation in Gaza City, the Israeli military destroyed a high-rise residential building yesterday morning, less than an hour after an evacuation order posted online by its spokesman, Avichay Adraee.
Residents said the Kauther tower in the Rimal neighborhood was flattened to the ground. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
“This is part of the genocidal measures the [Israeli] occupation is carrying out in Gaza City,” said Abed Ismail, a Gaza City resident. “They want to turn the whole city into rubble, and force the transfer and another Nakba.”
The word Nakba is Arabic for “catastrophe” and refers to when about 700,000 Palestinians were expelled by Israeli forces or fled their homes in what is now Israel, before and during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation.
Separately, two Palestinian adults died of causes related to malnutrition and starvation in the Gaza Strip over 24 hours yesterday, the territory’s health ministry reported.
That has brought the death toll from malnutrition-related causes to 277 since late June, when the ministry started to count fatalities among this age category, while another 145 children died of malnutrition-related causes since the start of the war in October 2023, the ministry said.
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