Under pressure from the Biden administration, the Israeli war cabinet has approved a UN delegation’s visit to northern Gaza to assess the situation and map the residents’ needs, Israeli media reports said. However, there are no details on when the visit will take place.
US State Secretary Antony Blinken earlier this month said that Israeli leaders had agreed to facilitate the visit, The Times of Israel reported. But Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has conditioned the visit on the UN team first touring Israeli communities ravaged during the Oct 7 attack, Israel’s Ynet news website reported.
‘We will settle’
It was insisted that the visit must not imply an intention to return Gazans to the Strip’s north and is contingent on having a US official join the UN delegation. This comes as 12 Israeli ministers and 15 coalition lawmakers on Sunday pledged to rebuild Jewish Israel settlements in the heart of the Gaza Strip and encourage the emigration of the Palestinians after the war. “God willing, we will settle and we will be victorious,” said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party.
On Sunday, Israel said “significant gaps” remain after cease-fire talks with the US, Qatar and Egypt but called them constructive and said they would continue in the week ahead. The Associated Press reported that it is a tentative sign of progress on a potential deal that could see Israel pause military operations against Hamas in exchange for the release of remaining hostages.
The war has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, destroyed vast swaths of Gaza and displaced nearly 85% of the territory’s people. Israel says its air and ground offensive has killed more than 9,000 militants. The October 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel killed about 1,200 people, and militants took about 250 hostages.
With Gaza’s 2.3 million people in a deepening crisis, the United Nations secretary-general called on the US and others to resume funding the main agency providing aid to the besieged territory, after Israel accused a dozen employees of taking part in the Hamas attack that ignited the war. The US announced its first military deaths in the region since the war began and blamed Iran-backed militants for the drone strike in Jordan that killed three American service members. Tehran has rejected the allegations.
(With agency inputs)
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