US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at talks aimed at ensuring more aid flows into Gaza, amid increasingly tense relations between the two allies over the six-month-old war with Hamas.
In Gaza, Israel claimed to have killed or captured hundreds of Hamas fighters in a five-day operation at the Al Shifa hospital complex, one of the only medical facilities even partially functioning in the north. Hamas and medical staff deny fighters were present there.
Blinken, on his sixth trip to the Middle East since the war broke out on October 7, has been engaged in an intense round of diplomacy since arriving in the region on Wednesday, meeting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia and foreign ministers and officials from Arab nations in Cairo on Thursday.
Parallel meetings are also taking place in Doha on Friday aimed at securing a ceasefire in the conflict.
The top US diplomat's latest visit to Israel comes at a time of strained ties between the two countries, with US President Joe Biden calling Israel's campaign in Gaza "over the top" and saying it has had too great a toll on civilian lives.
Blinken said he would address the growing gap between the two countries in his one-on-one conversation Netanyahu. He is also set to meet the Israeli war cabinet.
Blinken will push Netanyahu to take urgent steps to allow more aid into the densely-populated enclave, where mass death from famine is imminent, according to the United Nations.
The war was triggered by a raid into southern Israel by Hamas fighters who killed 1200 and took 253 hostages, by Israeli tallies.
More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in the subsequent Israeli bombardments, with many more feared dead under the rubble, Gaza health authorities say.
US officials say the number of aid deliveries via land needs to increase fast and that aid needs to be sustained over a long period.
Israel says it is not blocking food aid, but aid agencies say it is not providing enough access or security.
“A hundred per cent of the population of Gaza is experiencing severe levels of acute food insecurity. We cannot, we must not allow that to continue,” Blinken told a news conference late on Thursday.
“Israel needs to do more. Tomorrow, I’ll be talking to our partners about how to coordinate our efforts,” Blinken said.
Blinken is also expected to discuss Israel’s intention to launch a ground offensive on Rafah, a city on the southern edge of the enclave where more than half of the population is sheltering in makeshift accommodation.
Washington has repeatedly objected to such a plan. Netanyahu told Biden in a phone call on Monday that Israel sees no other way to defeat Hamas fighters it says are holed up there.
Last week, the leader of Biden's Democratic Party in the US Senate called Netanyahu an obstacle to peace and said Israelis should vote him out.
Biden called it a "good speech"; Netanyahu called it "inappropriate" and later held a video conference with lawmakers from Biden's Republican opposition.
The discussion on Friday will likely lay the groundwork for meetings in Washington between senior Israeli and US officials next week, when the United States will present to the Israelis alternative ways to hunt down Hamas without resorting to a full-on assault that would endanger more civilian lives.
Talks in Qatar on a truce are focused on a proposal for a six-week halt to fighting during which some 40 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas would be released, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails.
However, Israel is only prepared to commit to a temporary pause to the conflict and has repeatedly said it will push on with its campaign to achieve its aim of eradicating Hamas, which controls Gaza.
Hamas wants a permanent end to the war and for Israeli troops to withdraw.
