THE Israeli army kept bombing the Gaza Strip and killing innocent palestinians on Wednesday as US top diplomat Antony Blinken met the head of the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military said it killed dozens of “fighters” and hit another 150 targets in Hamas-run Gaza, where the health ministry said 147 people had been killed over the previous 24 hours.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas spoke with Blinken of the need “to stop the Israeli aggression against Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank”, which has also been torn by deadly unrest, said the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Blinken told Abbas that Washington supports “tangible steps” towards the creation of a Palestinian state — a long-term goal which the hard-right Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has opposed.
The secretary of state reiterated the US position that a Palestinian state must stand alongside Israel, “with both living in peace and security”, said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
As Blinken arrived under tight security at Abbas’s headquarters in Ramallah, a group of protesters held up signs that read “Stop the genocide”, “Free Palestine” and “Blinken out”. Some scuffled with Palestinian security forces in riot gear.
Abbas was later set to discuss a “push for an immediate ceasefire” in Gaza in talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the Red Sea port city of Aqaba.
Blinken was next headed to the Gulf state of Bahrain, home base of the US Fifth Fleet, for talks with King Hamad on preventing a regional escalation of the war, the State Department said.
Since the Gaza war started, fears have grown of a widening conflict between Israel and Iran-backed armed groups, especially Lebanon’s Hezbollah but also groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
