Blinken is scheduled to later visit Jordan and Qatar, where he will have to address Arab anger over Israel’s operation on Friday night in Gaza to rescue four hostages but kill about 300 Palestinians.
The visit to Israel comes amid turmoil in the government, with Gantz’s departure from the war cabinet on Sunday threatening Netanyahu’s hold on power and increasing domestic political pressure on him to accept a ceasefire proposal for the return of hostages still being held in the Gaza Strip.
In Israel, thousands of protesters have taken to the streets for weeks, led by families and supporters of the hostages who fear time is running out for their loved ones who remain in Gaza.
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Further demonstrations are expected during Blinken’s visit to Tel Aviv, with one protest group calling on Blinken and Biden to “seal the deal,” saying Netanyahu is undermining a deal to free the remaining hostages.
In his Sunday night broadcast, Gantz blasted Netanyahu for not focusing on the hostage deal, instead making next-day plans for Gaza, failing to act against Hezbollah in northern Lebanon and making “empty promises” of “total victory.”
“Unfortunately, Prime Minister Netanyahu is preventing us from achieving a real victory,” Gantz said, calling for new leadership to better steer Israel out of the crisis.
Prime Minister Netanyahu X Gantz continued speaking, warning of a divided government. “Israel is at an existential war on multiple fronts,” he wrote. “Benny, now is not the time to abandon the war. It is time to join forces.”
International pressure is also growing on Israel and Hamas to accept the ceasefire proposal, and UN agencies and international aid groups have repeatedly issued urgent calls for increased aid and security for affected areas.
The executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme said on Sunday that the organisation had temporarily halted distribution of humanitarian aid due to concerns about the safety of its staff. Cindy McCain told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that two of the programme’s warehouses in the Gaza Strip had come under “rocket fire”, injuring one staff member.
Scott Anderson, deputy director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which provides aid to the Palestinians, said getting aid into the Gaza Strip “remains extremely difficult.” Once inside the Gaza Strip, distribution of supplies is also in disarray, he told The Washington Post. Theft is common during transport from the Kerem Shalom crossing to warehouses, he said.
UNRWA’s “focus is on delivering aid and looking after people in the shelters,” which currently house about half the displaced, he said. There are also efforts to start providing some education to children in the shelters, even if it’s limited to an hour a day. “Something to give them a sense of normalcy and get their minds working again.”
Al Jazeera has denied claims by the Israeli Defense Ministry that a Palestinian journalist involved in the hostage crisis worked for the station. The paper said Abdullah al-Jamal, one of the three hostages found in his home, had never worked for Al Jazeera and had only contributed an op-ed in 2019. The statement said these “allegations are a continuation of a process of smear and misinformation aimed at damaging Al Jazeera’s reputation, professionalism and independence”, and called the repeated false allegations “absurd”.
At least 37,124 people have been killed and 84,712 injured in Gaza since the war began.The Gaza Health Ministry said most of the dead were women and children, although it did not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people, including more than 300 soldiers, were killed in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, and that 287 of its soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operations in Gaza.
Claire Parker and Lior Soroka contributed to this report.
