Visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday urged Israel to create safe zones for Palestinian civilians in Gaza before it resumes “major military operations” in the Hamas-ruled territory.
Speaking on the seventh day of a pause in fighting between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, Blinken also called for a further extension of the truce which included hostage and prisoner swaps and aid deliveries into the besieged Gaza Strip.
“Clearly, we want to see this process continue to move forward,” he told reporters in Tel Aviv at the end of a visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank.
“We want an eighth day and beyond,” he said.
The pause, due to expire early Friday unless an agreement to extend it is reached, has allowed the release of scores of Israeli and foreign hostages taken by Hamas in its deadly raid on southern Israel in return for Palestinian prisoners.
Blinken was on his third trip to the region since violence erupted on October 7 with the Hamas attack that according to Israeli officials saw around 240 people kidnapped and left 1,200 dead, mostly civilians.
In response, Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas and unleashed an air and ground military campaign that the Hamas government says has killed more than 15,000 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians.
Blinken told reporters Israel “must put in place humanitarian civilian protection plans that minimise further casualties of innocent Palestinians”.
This, he said, should be “by clearly and precisely designating areas and places in southern and central Gaza, where they can be safe and out of the line of fire”.
He said this meant avoiding further “significant displacement of civilians inside Gaza” as well as “damage to life (or) critical infrastructure like hospitals, like power stations, like water facilities”.
“And it means giving civilians who have been displaced in southern Gaza the choice to return to the north as soon as conditions permit.”
There should be no “enduring internal displacement”, he said.
