GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories, Jan  8, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Top US
diplomat Antony Blinken was due to arrive in Tel Aviv late Monday seeking to
avert an escalation of the Gaza war, as Israel pounded the Palestinian
territory and Lebanon's Hezbollah said one of its commanders was killed in an
Israeli strike.

       A Palestinian militant group fighting alongside Hamas in the besieged Gaza
Strip reported fierce ground combat in the south, while the health ministry in
the Hamas-run territory said it had recorded 249 deaths in the previous 24
hours.

       Three months into its war with Hamas militants, Israel says its focus has
moved from northern Gaza to "dismantling" militants in the territory's centre
and south.

       Sirens sounded Monday in central Israel to warn of a salvo of rockets fired
from the Gaza Strip. And while battles rage in Gaza, the situation to Israel's
north is also causing increasing regional and global concern.

       Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, have engaged in regular
cross-border fire during the war that began on October 7 with Hamas's
unprecedented attack against Israel.

       On Monday, Hezbollah announced the killing of a "commander" for the first
time, naming him as Wissam Hassan Tawil.

       A security official in Lebanon, requesting anonymity for security reasons,
said Tawil "had a leading role in managing Hezbollah's operations in the
south", and was killed there by an Israeli strike targeting his car.

       The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah "military sites" in Lebanon
on Monday, but did not immediately comment on Tawil's death.

       His is the second high-profile killing in Lebanon this month, following a
strike in a Beirut stronghold of Hezbollah last week which killed Hamas deputy
leader Saleh al-Aruri.

       A US Defense Department official has told AFP that Israel carried out the
Beirut strike, which has heightened fears of the conflict in Gaza spreading.
       
       - 'Fierce clashes' -
    
       
       The October 7 attack by Hamas which triggered the war resulted in about
1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on
official figures.

       Hamas, considered a "terrorist" group by the United States and European
Union, also took around 250 hostages, 132 of whom remain captive, Israel says.
At least 24 are believed to have been killed.

       Israel has responded with relentless bombardment and a ground invasion that
have killed at least 23,084 people, mostly women and children, according to the
Gaza health ministry.

       The Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of militant group Islamic Jihad,
reported "fierce clashes" on Monday, involving machine guns and
rocket-propelled grenades, with Israeli troops in the southern city of Khan
Yunis.

       Live AFPTV images showed black smoke over central and southern areas, and
the sound of explosions.

       Israel's military reported its forces have "been working in recent days to
expand" operations around Khan Yunis and said troops and warplanes struck 30
"significant" targets in the major city overnight Sunday-Monday.

       These included underground targets and weapons facilities, it said, adding
that a drone also killed 10 militants in Khan Yunis "preparing to launch
rockets toward Israeli territory".

       Islamic Jihad later released a video it claimed showed an Israeli hostage
alive in its custody.

       The fighting, now in its fourth month, has reduced swathes of the narrow
Palestinian territory to rubble, and prompted international concern over dire
humanitarian conditions.

       The United Nations on Monday said it was "very concerned by the high death
toll of media workers", a day after Qatar-based Al Jazeera network said an
Israeli strike had killed two of its journalists, including the son of Gaza
bureau chief Wael Dahdouh.

       The UN rights office called for the deaths to be "thoroughly and
independently investigated".
       
       - 'Preventing spread of conflict' -
    
       
       US Secretary of State Blinken, on his fourth regional trip since the war
began, met on Monday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after talks in
the United Arab Emirates and ahead of a visit to Israel.

       Blinken "emphasised the importance of preventing further spread of the
conflict" during talks with Emirati President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al
Nahyan, a US summary of the meeting said.

       The Israel-Hamas war has sent shockwaves across the region, with violence
surging along the border with Lebanon and in the occupied West Bank.

       Strikes by Iran-aligned militias against US troops in Iraq and Syria have
also increased and Yemen's Tehran-backed Huthi rebels have launched strikes
towards targets in the Red Sea, a major global trade route, and Israel.

       Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was in Cairo on Monday to meet with
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, a mediator in the conflict.

       Over the weekend, Qatari officials also hosted relatives of hostages still
held in Gaza, said Ruby Chen, father of 19-year-old captive Itay Chen.

       Qatar, which had helped mediate a one-week truce last year that saw
hostages freed, said on Sunday talks with Hamas on a new pause in the fighting
were "ongoing".

       Chen, back in Tel Aviv, said the release of more hostages "serves the
bigger objective, as they (Qatar) see it, which is creating regional stability".
       
       - 'Going hungry' -
    
       
       Washington, Israel's main ally and arms supplier, has grown increasingly
concerned over the war's civilian death toll.

       Most of Gaza's population has been displaced, according to the United
Nations, leaving people in overcrowded shelters or tents in the winter chill.

       Many have fled to Rafah in Gaza's far south, where a strike on Monday
ripped open a car killing two of Dahdouh's nephews. He was recently wounded
himself in a strike, and lost his wife and two other children in an Israeli
bombardment in the initial weeks of the war.

       "They say Rafah is safe, but we don't see it is safe in Rafah. No place is
safe," said Mohammad Hejazy, overlooking the blood-soaked road.

       The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of the risk of famine and
disease, with only minimal aid entering the besieged territory.

       Israeli rights group B'Tselem on Monday said "everyone in Gaza is going
hungry" as "direct results of Israel's declared policy".

       Washington has said Blinken will press Israel on its compliance with
international humanitarian law and ask for "immediate measures" to boost aid to
Gaza.