On his most recent tour of the Middle East, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stopped in Egypt on Tuesday with the goal of bringing the Israel-Hamas conflict to “an enduring end” and establishing a fresh truce.
The health ministry in the Hamas-ruled region that has been under bombardment for nearly four months reported that heavy strikes and fighting in Gaza killed at least 99 persons overnight, the majority of whom were women and children.
As Israel’s attack continued, fears increased for the more than a million Palestinians crammed into the remote southern Rafah area as the battlefront came closer.
On Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant issued a dire warning, saying that the armed forces “will reach places where we have not yet fought […] right up to the last Hamas bastion, which is Rafah” near the Egyptian border.
A day after holding discussions with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, Blinken, who was on his fifth foreign journey since the start of the bloodiest-ever Gaza conflict, was scheduled to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Later, the top US envoy was scheduled to visit Qatar and Israel in an attempt to garner support for a cease-fire agreement that was hammered out in Paris in January but has not yet been approved by Israel or Hamas.
