Tel Aviv, Nov 3, (dpa/GNA) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, says he told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, that Israel will not agree to any ceasefire in Gaza unless the hostages being held by Hamas are released.
“I made it clear that we will continue with all the force. We refuse any ceasefire that does not include the liberation of our hostages,” Netanyahu said after meeting Blinken on Friday, during the US secretary of state’s latest visit to the country.
Israel says 249 people are being held captive in Gaza.
Blinken said during his latest visit to Israel on Friday, that Washington stood resolutely behind its ally Israel, but said “not enough” aid was getting into Gaza, and civilians must be protected.
“We need to do more to protect Palestinian civilians,” Blinken said shortly before Netanyahu spoke.
“We’ve been clear that as Israel conducts its campaign to defeat Hamas, how it does matters. It matters because it is the right and lawful thing to do. It matters because failure to do so plays into the hands of Hamas and other terror groups.”
The White House, including US President Joe Biden, says it supports “humanitarian pauses” in the war between Israel and Hamas, to allow aid in and civilians out. The European Union has made similar calls.
Blinken, who also met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, will travel on to Jordan from Israel. He was last in Israel shortly after the war in Gaza broke out.
Meanwhile, the UN’s emergency response agency said $1.2 billion is needed to meet the urgent needs of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
This is four times the amount first requested by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in early October, shortly after Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel and Israel’s military response.
“The situation has grown increasingly desperate since then,” said OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke in Geneva on Friday.
Laerke said the new appeal for donations covers the needs of 2.7 million people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank through the end of the year. The money will be used to finance food, water, healthcare and accommodation for Palestinians.
About 1.5 million of the approximately 2.2 million people in the Gaza Strip have been internally displaced by the war, according to OCHA figures.
Laerke said that rooms measuring 40 to 60 square metres rooms inside some UN shelters in Gaza are housing up to 240 people.
On the military front, at least nine people have been killed in Israeli military operations in the West Bank, according to Palestinian officials on Friday.
Five of them were killed during the night in the Jenin refugee camp, the Ministry of Health in Ramallah said.
Several reportedly belonged to extremist groups present in the giant camp on the edge of the town of Jenin.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said an airstrike on an “armed cell” there during the night, killed “several assailants” who had opened fire and threw explosive devices at Israeli troops and border police.
The situation in the West Bank has worsened since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, on October 7.
The IDF said 1,260 suspects have been arrested since then, including 760 with links to the Islamist Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the US and the EU.
Earlier, the IDF said prolonged and heavy battles were reported in Gaza overnight, as Israel ramped up its ground campaign to eliminate Hamas from the Palestinian territory.
Israeli soldiers “clashed with a number of terror squads inside the Gaza Strip,” the IDF said.
Nearly a week ago, Israel launched a second phase in its war on Hamas.
Troops expanded their operations on the ground – without the government calling it an all-out invasion – and also stepped up its air campaign.
Rockets were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip on Friday morning, after a pause of about 12 hours.
According to Israeli military figures, more than 8,000 rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip at Israeli settlements, since the current conflict erupted.
Israel declared its plans to wipe out Hamas, after its militants went on a rampage through Israeli towns bordering Gaza, killing 1,400 people and taking 249 others hostage on October 7.
GNA