The war between Israel and Hamas will enter the third month on Sunday (Jan 7). The conflict is intensifying in the Gaza Strip and the United Nations (UN) warned on Saturday that the besieged Palestinian territory has simply become “uninhabitable.” The Palestinian health ministry said that at least 22,722 people have been killed in Gaza since the war started on Oct 7 last year. A total of 58,166 people have been injured so far.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on a week-long tour to the Middle East, continuing Washington’s diplomacy over the war. Blinken’s visit comes amid heightened concerns that the conflict is spilling over. Blinken already visited Turkey and Greece and is left to make stops in Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
Here’s a look at the latest updates from the war:
> US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul on Saturday. In a post on X, Blinken said that he and Erdogan “discussed the conflict in Gaza, shared security priorities as NATO Allies, and desire to expand our bilateral trade and investment.”
> Following his meeting with Erdogan, Blinken arrived in Greece to meet Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and address Greece’s concerns about the looming sale of US fighter jets to Turkey. According to Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis, the talks between Blinken and Mitsotakis would focus on international developments regarding the war in Gaza and Ukraine, and bilateral relations, especially on energy and defence cooperation issues, including the supply of F-35s.
> Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said on Saturday that it fired more than 60 rockets at an Israeli military base in response to the killing in Beirut of Hamas’s deputy leader. “As part of the initial response to the crime of assassinating the great leader Sheikh Saleh al-Aruri… the Islamic resistance (Hezbollah) targeted the Meron air control base with 62 missiles of various types,” Hezbollah said in a statement, the news agency AFP reported.
> Josep Borrell, the European Union foreign policy chief, said on Saturday it was absolutely necessary that Lebanon was not dragged into the conflict.
“It is imperative to avoid regional escalation in the Middle East. It is absolutely necessary to avoid Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict,” Josep Borrell said during a press conference in Beirut with Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib.
> The US military shot down a drone early Saturday over the Red Sea in international waters near several commercial vessels. “An unmanned aerial vehicle launched from Iranian-backed Huthi-controlled areas of Yemen was shot down in self-defence” by the USS Laboon, the US Central Command said in a social media post.
> This incident came days after a 12-nation group led by the US warned Houthi rebels in Yemen against continuing their attacks on Red Sea shipping. Since the conflict started, Houthi rebels launched more than 100 drone and missile strikes toward targets in the Red Sea.
(With inputs from agencies)
