ISTANBUL, Jan 06 (Agencies): Washington's top diplomat discusses the Gaza war with Turkey's mercurial leader on Saturday before flying to Crete to address Greek worries about the looming sale of US fighter jets to Ankara.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Istanbul late Friday for the first leg of a trip that includes visits to both Israel and West Bank.
Blinken's fourth crisis tour since the start of the Israel-Hamas war three months ago comes with fears mounting that the conflict will engulf swathes of the Middle East.
A senior US administration official said Blinken will press Israel to increase aid to Palestinians and move to a phase of combat that allows the displaced to start returning to their homes.
The official added that much of the discussions with Arab leaders will focus on containing the violence and looking at how the region can be governed once the fighting ends.
Istanbul served as a base for Hamas political leaders until raids on Israel killed around 1,140 people and triggered a reprisal offensive that the Gaza health ministry says has claimed 22,600 lives-most of them women and children.
Turkey asked the Hamas chiefs to leave after some were captured on video celebrating the deadliest attack in Israel's history.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has since turned into one of the Muslim world's harshest critics of the scale of death and destruction happening in Gaza-and of Washington's support for Israel.
Erdogan has compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler and accused the United States of sponsoring the "genocide" of Palestinians.
He has also rebuffed US pressure to cut off the suspected flow of funding through Turkey to Hamas and defended the group as legitimately elected "liberators" fighting for their land.
Meanwhile, Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah group said on Saturday it had fired rockets at Israel and its arch-foe said it had struck a "terrorist cell" in retaliation, as top US and EU diplomats visited the region to seek ways to halt spillover from the war.
Shortly after rocket sirens sounded across northern Israel, the Israeli military said that "approximately 40 launches from Lebanon toward the area of Meron in northern Israel were identified". There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
Hezbollah said it had hit a key Israeli observation post with 62 rockets as a "preliminary response" to the killing of Hamas' deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri on Tuesday. Tensions have been especially high since Arouri was killed by a drone in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of Hamas' Lebanese ally Hezbollah, in an attack widely attributed to Israel.
The head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, said on Friday Lebanon would be "exposed" to more Israeli operations if his group did not respond to the killing.
Gaza has become 'uninhabitable,'
UN humanitarian chief says
The United Nations humanitarian chief says Gaza has become "uninhabitable" three months after Hamas' horrific attacks against Israel and "a public health disaster is unfolding."
Martin Griffiths said in a statement Friday that "people are facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded (and) famine is around the corner."
And Gazans are "witnessing daily threats to their very existence - while the world watches on," he said.
The UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs said tens of thousands of people, mostly women and children, have been killed or injured, families are sleeping in the open as temperatures plummet, and areas where Palestinians were told to relocate have been bombed.
Health ministry says war deaths
top 22,700
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Saturday at least 22,722 people had been killed in the besieged Palestinian territory since war with Israel erupted on October 7.
The ministry said in a statement that it had recorded 122 deaths over the past 24 hours, while a total of 58,166 people had been wounded in the Gaza Strip in nearly three months of fighting.
Hamas chief urges Blinken to focus on ending Israeli 'aggression'
01/06/2024 17:35:39 GMT+06:00
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GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories, Jan 6, 2024 (AFP) - Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has called on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to use his current Middle East tour to end Israel's "aggression" as war rages in Gaza.
The top US diplomat arrived in Turkey on Friday at the start of a trip that includes planned visits to Israel and the occupied West Bank as well as several Gulf states.
US officials have said that Blinken, in his fourth regional tour since fighting erupted with Hamas's October 7 attacks on Israel, would focus on getting more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip, ruled by the Palestinian militant group.
In a video message posted late Friday on Hamas's social media channels, Haniyeh said he hoped Blinken had "learned the lessons of the last three months" during which Israel has relentlessly bombarded Gaza in an effort to destroy the Islamist group.
US support for Israel's military campaign "has caused unprecedented massacres and war crimes against our people in Gaza", Haniyeh said.
"We... hope that he will be more focused this time on ending the aggression" as well as "the occupation of all Palestinian lands", the Qatar-based Hamas chief added.
Haniyeh also urged regional leaders due to meet Blinken to tell him that stability in the Middle East was "closely linked to our Palestinian cause".
The United States is Israel's chief military and political backer and has repeatedly refused to support calls for a ceasefire.
However, Washington has lent its support to humanitarian pauses and backed a UN Security Council resolution demanding more aid be let into Gaza.
The war began with an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel responded by bombarding the territory and sending in ground forces, killing at least 22,722 people, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
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