{UAH} WHEN THE LOUD MOUTH IN OTTAWA YAPPED HOW HAPPY IT WAS THAT TRUMP WAS LEAVING I CAUTIONED IT AT WHAT IT WAS ABOUT TO FACE ->If these idiots get a second term half the Moslem population in Palestine are going to be wiped out

U.S. top diplomat Blinken to visit Israel as Gaza suffers bloodiest 24 hours of this year

Story by By Arafat Barbakh, Simon Lewis and Nidal al-Mughrabi  • 14h

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, during Blinken's week-long trip aimed at calming tensions across the Middle East, in Al Ula, Saudi Arabia, January 8, 2024. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/Pool© Thomson Reuters

By Arafat Barbakh, Simon Lewis and Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA/ABU DHABI/CAIRO (Reuters) - Israeli attacks inflicted the highest daily Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war so far this year, health officials in Gaza said on Monday, as the U.S. Secretary of State visited the region in a bid to prevent the conflict from expanding.

Israeli forces bombarded the eastern part of the southern city of Khan Younis and the central Gaza Strip amid ground clashes in those areas of the devastated enclave, residents said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken waves as he departs for Saudi Arabia, during his week-long trip aimed at calming tensions across the Middle East, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, January 8, 2024. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/Pool© Thomson Reuters

They said a strike in Deir Al-Balah had killed 18 people overnight and four on Monday. Health officials in the Hamas-run enclave said 247 people had been killed overnight.

Smoke rises over Gaza during Israeli strikes, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, January 8, 2024. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu© Thomson Reuters

Hamas's military wing the Al-Qassam Brigades said its fighters fired a missile barrage at the Israeli city of Tel Aviv in response to what it called the "Zionist massacres against civilians".

And in a further sign that the three-month-old war is spreading beyond the Palestinian enclave, Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander in a strike in south Lebanon on Monday, sources familiar with the group's operations said.

Trucks carrying aid make their way from Egypt to the Gaza Strip via the Kerem Shalom crossing, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, January 8, 2024. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu© Thomson Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has backed Israel while expressing growing concern over civilian casualties, was holding talks on Gaza in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Monday to try to chart a way forward.

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, seek shelter near the border with Egypt, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, January 7, 2024. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa© Thomson Reuters

It is his fourth visit to the region since the deadly Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas militants in Gaza triggered a massive Israeli assault that shows no signs of ending.

Other Iranian-backed militant groups have weighed in, attacking Israeli forces on the border with Lebanon and U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria as well as ships in the Red Sea.

Israel outlined a more focused approach to the war ahead of his visit as international concern grew over the high death toll.

The Israeli offensive has so far killed 23,084 Palestinians, health officials say, while Israel says Hamas still holds more than 100 hostages of the 240 seized during its attack on Israeli towns in which the militants killed 1,200 people.

Palestinians inspect a car hit by an Israeli strike on Rafah, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the southern Gaza Strip January 8, 2024. REUTERS/Fadi Shana© Thomson Reuters

'NOTHING LEFT'

In Gaza on Monday, Jihad Baraka helped carry the shrouded bodies of Sami Bilal Abu Issa, 11, and Muhammed Bilal Abu Issa, 9, out of Gaza's European Hospital into a waiting ambulance.

The boys suffered serious injuries when their home was hit as they slept and the Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital was unable to treat them, Baraka said.

"The situation is dangerous at al-Aqsa hospital. There is nothing left to treat the people with, no doctors are left, everyone evacuated," he said.

Israel accuses Hamas of operating among civilians. Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, denies the accusation.

Jordan's King Abdullah said on Monday that "indiscriminate aggression" and shelling could never bring peace or security.

In remarks at the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda, he said: "More children have died in Gaza than in all other conflicts around the world this past year. Of those who have survived, many have lost one or both parents, an entire generation of orphans."

The Israeli military said it had bombed an arms cache and uncovered a tunnel shaft in central Gaza and killed at least 10 militant fighters in Khan Younis. It dropped leaflets on al Moghani in central Gaza warning residents to evacuate several districts it said were "dangerous combat zones". Hamas said a sniper had killed an Israeli soldier in central Gaza.

Nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million people have fled their homes at least once and many are now moving again, often sheltering in makeshift tents or huddled under tarpaulins.

For Aziza Abbas, 57, camped close to the southern border with Egypt, there was nowhere else to go after what she said was bombing around a school in which she had taken shelter after leaving her home in the north.

"They may kill us here, it doesn't matter to them," she told Reuters, saying she did not want to leave Gaza for Egypt, which has closed the border fearing an exodus.

In nearby Rafah, medics recovered the bodies of three people killed in an Israeli air strike on a car that locals said had been carrying food.

"Blinken...will never change anything," displaced Palestinian Mohammed Al-Qassas said at the scene.

The U.N.'s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA reported 63 direct hits on its installations and Ashraf Al-Qidra, while the spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza said 1.9 million people in shelters faced famine, drought, and epidemics.

Germany's foreign minister Annalena Baerbock visited Israel and urged it to protect Palestinians in the occupied West Bank where Israeli forces have killed hundreds in a crackdown.

Blinken said he would tell Israeli officials they must do more to prevent civilian casualties in Gaza. He also said it must allow Palestinian civilians to return home after right-wing members of Israel's ruling coalition called for them to move elsewhere.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell joined Blinken in Saudi Arabia.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told the Wall Street Journal his country was both determined to end Hamas rule of the enclave and deter other Iran-backed adversaries.

(Reporting by Arafat Barbakh and Fadi Shana in Gaza, Simon Lewis in Abu Dhabi, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Clauda Tanios in Dubai and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; additional reporting by Hatem Maher, Ali Sawafta and James Mackenzie; writing by Philippa Fletcher and Angus MacSwan, editing by William Maclean and Hugh Lawson)

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