The US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinkenwill visit this Monday Israel to try to de-escalate the conflict in Loop and prevent it from spreading to Lebanonwhere, according to a security source, an Israeli strike killed a military leader in Hezbollah.
This boss military “He played a leading role in directing military operations in the south,” where exchanges of fire between the Lebanese pro-Iran movement and the Israeli army are almost daily, added the source, who requested anonymity.
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He died in the town of Kherbet Selm, to a dozen kilometers from the border with Israelwhen he was driving his vehicle, according to the same source.
Rising tensions in the area fuel fear to a regional conflagration, when the war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement in Gaza enters its fourth month.
On a stop in Qatar on Sunday, Blinken He warned that the conflict “could easily metastasize,” but added that his country is working to “prevent” the war from “spreading” throughout the region.
After a stage in Saudi Arabia, he will arrive to Israel on Monday night and will hold meetings on Tuesday that are expected to be tense, before to travel on Wednesday to Occupied West Bank and Egypt.
According to US officials, the Secretary of State wants to avoid to all costs that Lebanon be dragged to war, convince to Israel to enter a new phase military less deadly and engage in a “difficult” dialogue about the postwar period.
Israel vowed to destroy the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas after the stroke which was carried out in its territory on October 7 and left some 1,140 dead, according to an AFP count based on Israeli figures.
Hamas also took to 250 hostages, of which some 132 remain captive in Gaza.
Qatar, which mediated for the release of hostages to At the end of November, it continues its efforts to return those still captive, said the father of one of them, Ruby Chen, who met with Qatari leaders.
The offensive that Israel launched in Gaza in retaliation for the stroke The Palestinian Islamist group has so far left 23,084 dead, the vast majority of them children and women, according to data from Monday from the Ministry of Health of Hamas, which governs that small Palestinian territory.
The bombings have also left several neighborhoods in Loop in ruins, causing the displacement of 85% of the population and causing a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic levels, according to the UN.
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“Nowhere safe”
According to the Hamas government, Israeli operations killed to 73 people and injured to 99 in the last 24 hours in downtown Loop.
The Israeli army announced attacks in Jan Yunisthe main city in the south of the besieged territory and the new epicenter of the fightingin which they died “ten terrorists who were preparing to launch rockets against Israel”.
On Monday morning, a stroke in Rafahin the far south of Gaza, also destroyed a vehicle from which rescuers and residents were removing bodies, according to AFPTV.
“They said that Rafah It was safe, but (…) there is no safe place, we don’t know what to do“, laments the Gazan Mohamad Hejazy.
Hundreds of thousands of residents have flocked to Rafah to escape from fighting which take place further north.
Two journalists who worked for the channel Al Jazeera, Mustafa Thuria and Hamza Wael Dahdouhdied on Sunday in a stroke against your vehicle Rafah. A third journalist who was with them, Hazem Rajabis seriously injured.
The Israeli army took responsibility for the shooting, stating to the AFP that was directed to “a terrorist who piloted a flying device that posed a threat to the troops,” and that was “aware of information according to which two other suspects traveling in the same vehicle were also hit during the stroke”.
These deaths raise at least to 79 the number of journalists and media professionals, mostly Palestinians, killed since October 7, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The conflict has also sparked violence in the West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
A stroke Israeli on Sunday killed to seven Palestinians in the northern city of Jeninindicated the Palestinian Ministry of Health of West Bankwhich reported an eighth killed by Israeli fire in another incident.
Elsewhere, an Israeli border policeman was killed when a bomb hit his vehicle during a raid in Jeninand an Israeli civilian was killed in a shootout near Ramallahaccording to Israeli authorities.
Israeli police later said that officers responding to a stroke with vehicle to a checkpoint was shot to a three-year-old Palestinian girl, who died.
