Blinken urges Israel to create safe zones in Gaza when fighting resumes

TEL AVIV, Israel — 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.

Truce 'producing results'

Blinken said Israel was "capable of neutralising the threat posed by Hamas while minimising harm to innocent men, women and children. And it has an obligation to do so".

He stressed "the imperative of the United States that the massive loss of civilian life and displacement of the scale that we saw in northern Gaza not be repeated in the south".

Earlier Blinken told Israeli leaders the truce was "producing results" and should continue.

"We have seen over the last week the very positive development of hostages coming home, being reunited with their families," Blinken said in his meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

"It's also enabled an increase in humanitarian assistance to go to innocent civilians in Gaza who need it desperately.

"So this process is producing results. It's important, and we hope that it can continue."

In a statement released by his office, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had raised with Blinken a deadly shooting attack in Jerusalem on Thursday that was later claimed by Hamas, saying "nothing will stop us" from destroying the group.

"We will continue this war until we achieve the three goals: freeing all of our hostages, completely eliminating Hamas and ensuring that no threat like this will ever come from Gaza again," Netanyahu said.

After the meeting, Blinken travelled by armoured convoy to the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank city of Ramallah for talks with president Mahmud Abbas.

The two "spoke about the urgent need for measures to improve security and freedom for Palestinians in the West Bank", State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.

Blinken reiterated "that the United States remains committed to advancing tangible steps for a Palestinian state", the statement said.

Violence has surged in the West Bank -- occupied by Israel since 1967 -- in tandem with the Israel-Hamas war. According to the Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry, nearly 240 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers since October 7.