US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Cairo on Thursday as part of talks with Arab officials to seek a ceasefire in Gaza, after Israel’s prime minister told US Republicans there would be no let-up in the war against Hamas.
In Gaza itself, Israel’s offensive focused on the Al Shifa hospital, the only partially working medical facility in the north of the Strip, for a fourth day, and local residents said they had seen buildings inside the complex in flames.
Five months of war have created critical food shortages among Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians that in some areas now exceed famine levels, according to the United Nations.
“We’re pressing for an immediate ceasefire tied to the release of hostages,” Blinken told the Arabic broadcaster Al Hadath. “That would bring immediate relief to so many people who are suffering in Gaza – the children, the women, the men.”
He said the US had drafted a resolution at the United Nations to that effect.
Ceasefire talks resumed this week in Qatar, centered on a truce of around six weeks that would allow the release of 40 Israeli hostages in return for hundreds of Palestinians detained in Israeli jails.
However, the main sticking point remains that Hamas says it will release hostages only as part of an agreement that would end the war, while Israel says it will discuss only a temporary pause.
“I think the gaps are narrowing, and I think an agreement is very much possible,” Blinken told Al Hadath. “The Israeli team is present, has authority to reach an agreement.”
Blinken and Sisi together reviewed progress in the talks, Sisi’s office and the US State Department said.
Sisi stressed the need for a truce to address the escalating humanitarian crisis and warned of the dangers of a military operation in Rafah, the last zone of relative safety for civilians where more than half the enclave’s population is now sheltering, pressed against the Egyptian border.
As concern over starvation in Gaza mounts, officials from 36 countries and UN agencies gathered in Cyprus to discuss ways to expedite humanitarian deliveries.
One aid ship arrived in the enclave last week via a new route from Cyprus and two others are expected to depart soon, although aid agencies have said the shipments are logistically difficult and not nearly enough to replace food deliveries by truck.
“We have to remember there are limitations in terms of the reception and distribution,” Cypriot Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said.
Near Al Shifa, residents told Reuters via a chat app that the army had blown up houses close by as buildings in the hospital complex burned.
Rabah, a father of five, said the area was a war zone, with people trapped inside their houses amid clashes in the streets.
“Israel sent tanks back into the heart of Gaza City to destroy what is left of its homes and roads. All of that is happening in the sight of the one-eyed world,” he said.