US secretary of state to focus on Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal; at least 20 killed in attacks on city formerly designated safe zone by Israeli military and now sheltering more than 1 million people, UN agency says
US says strikes on Iran-linked militias just ‘the beginning’ of its responseOvernight Israeli airstrikes kill scores in Gaza as fears grow of push into Rafah
US secretary of state Antony Blinken is set to arrive in Saudi Arabia on his fifth visit to the region since October in the coming hours.
His visit comes comes after the US carried out retaliatory strikes against Iranian-linked targets in Iraq and Syria, and on Houthi rebel sites in Yemen, in the latest escalation of the conflict that is spreading across the Middle East.
Blinken on his trip will visit Israel as well as Egypt and Qatar, the key go-between with Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip and maintains an office in Doha.
Blinken, speaking Monday after meeting in Washington with Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said there was “real hope” for success of the “good, strong [ceasefire] proposal.”
The total death toll in Gaza since 7 October has risen to 27,365. A kindergarten in Rafah sheltering displaced families was among the places hit by Israel over the weekend.
US national security advisor Jake Sullivan said there would be more steps in the American response to last weekend’s deadly drone attack on US soldiers in Jordan. Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press, he said the retaliatory strikes launched on Iran-linked targets in Iraq and Syria on Friday were “the beginning, not the end, of our response”.
Later, the US military said it had struck a Houthi land attack cruise missile early on Sunday and four anti-ship cruise missiles hours later “all of which were prepared to launch against ships in the Red Sea”. It was the third batch of US strikes against Iran-backed militias in the Middle East in as many days.
The head of Iraq’s pro-Iran Hashed al-Shaabi alliance demanded the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces from the country after the deadly strikes, warning that the US was “playing with fire”. “They targeted administration offices, a (Hashed) hospital, they struck forces tasked with protecting the borders,” Faleh al-Fayyad said at a funeral ceremony for members of the group killed in the US strikes.
Iran warned the US against any move against the Iranian-flagged ship Behshad, which is stationed in the Red Sea and suspected by the US of providing surveillance information to help direct Houthi onshore cruise-missile attacks on commercial shipping in the area. Any attack on the ship would be at the risk of those taking such steps, Tehran said.