Antony Blinken arrives in Israel for talks

Meanwhile, UN prepares to vote on a cease-fire resolution

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived on Friday in Tel Aviv, Israel, on the final stop in his sixth urgent trip to the region since the start of the war. Blinken says he will share alternatives to Israel’s planned ground assault into the southern Gaza town of Rafah when he meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his War Cabinet.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council will vote Friday on a US-sponsored resolution declaring “the imperative of an immediate and sustained cease-fire” in the Israel-Hamas war. 

Palestinian children wait to fetch water in Rafah. Pic/AP

It also supports diplomatic efforts to secure a “cease-fire in connection with the release of all remaining hostages” and emphasizes “the urgent need to expand the flow of humanitarian assistance to civilians in the entire Gaza Strip”.

So little food has been allowed into Gaza that up to 60 per cent of children under 5 are now malnourished, compared with fewer than 1 per cent before the war began, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday.

The Health Ministry in Gaza raised the territory’s death toll Thursday to nearly 32,000 Palestinians.

Finally, aid trucks enter northern Gaza directly from Israel

Aid trucks were seen entering northern Gaza from southern Israel on Thursday along a corridor that Israeli authorities said earlier this month had been tried as a “pilot programme”. A UN food agency has warned that “famine is imminent” in northern Gaza where 70 per cent of people are experiencing catastrophic hunger. It warned that escalation of the war could push half population to the brink of starvation.

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