TEL AVIV, Jan  9, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - More than three months into the
deadliest ever Gaza war, US top diplomat Antony Blinken urged Israel on Tuesday
to "avoid further civilian harm" in the besieged Palestinian territory.

       In a Tel Aviv meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the secretary
of state reaffirmed US "support for Israel's right to prevent the terrorist
attacks of October 7 from being repeated", said State Department spokesman
Matthew Miller.

       But Blinken also "stressed the importance of avoiding further civilian harm
and protecting civilian infrastructure in Gaza", said Miller about the
Hamas-run territory where more than 23,000 people have died in the war, local
health officials say.

       For the longer term, Miller said, Blinken "reiterated the need to ensure
lasting, sustainable peace for Israel and the region, including by the
realisation of a Palestinian state".

       Netanyahu met Blinken -- who was on his fourth round of Middle East crisis
diplomacy since the war broke out -- on a day when the Israeli army again
bombed Gaza and battled Hamas fighters.

       An AFP correspondent reported intense strikes overnight in Khan Yunis and
Rafah, the biggest cities in the south of Gaza which are crowded with
internally displaced people.

       The army said its forces had killed 40 militants over the past 24 hours in
"expanded ground operations including air strikes" in Khan Yunis, and that
troops had seized AK-47 assault rifles, rocket launchers and other weapons.

       The Gaza war broke out after Hamas gunmen launched their October 7 attack
that resulted in about 1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to
an AFP tally based on official figures.

       Militants of Hamas, considered a "terrorist" group by the United States and
European Union, also took around 250 hostages. Israel says 132 of them remain
captive, including at least 25 believed to have been killed.

       Israel has responded with relentless bombardment and a ground invasion of
Gaza that have killed at least 23,210 people, mostly women and children,
according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

       The Israeli army says its death toll inside Gaza had risen to 185 after
nine soldiers were killed on Monday.
       
       - 'Heavy price' -
    
       
       Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, speaking in Qatar on Tuesday, argued that the
October 7 attack "came after an attempt to marginalise the Palestinian cause".

       He charged that, "despite the heavy price, the massacres and the war of
genocide, it (Israel) failed to achieve any of its goals."

       In further comments, released later by Hamas in Gaza, he called on Muslim
states "to support the resistance with weapons, because this is... not the
battle of the Palestinian people alone".

       The war has displaced most of Gaza's 2.4 million people, and the United
Nations says many are at risk of famine and disease.

       With only minimal aid entering Gaza, Israeli human rights group B'Tselem
charged that "everyone in Gaza is going hungry" as the "direct results of
Israel's declared policy".

       Since the war started, fears have also grown of an escalating conflict
between Israel and its other regional enemies, a loose alliance of Iran-backed
armed groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

       Israel has traded cross-border fire with Hezbollah for three months and
more recently killed senior operatives of the Shiite Muslim militant group as
well as of Hamas on Lebanese soil.

       Hezbollah said Tuesday it had launched a drone attack on Israel's "northern
command centre" in Safed as part of its response to the killings of Hamas
deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri and Hezbollah field commander Wissam Tawil.

       The Israeli army confirmed that a "hostile aircraft" had come down at one
of its bases in the north and said that "no injuries or damage were reported".

       The Israeli army also said Monday it had killed a "central" Hamas figure in
Syria, Hassan Akasha, who had led "terrorist cells which fired rockets...
toward Israeli territory".
       
       - 'Culture of hatred' -
    
       
       Blinken also voiced hope that, after the war, Israel could push on with its
efforts towards regional integration, following its US-brokered normalisation
deals with the United Arab Emirates and other states.

       "I think there actually are real opportunities there, but we have to get
through this very challenging moment," Blinken said after meeting Foreign
Minister Israel Katz on the latest leg of a tour that has already taken him to
Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

       As the ground offensive continues, the Israeli army has claimed to have
largely achieved military control over northern Gaza, and said that the war is
now entering a new phase.

       Army spokesman Daniel Hagari, speaking to The New York Times, said the next
phase would involve fewer soldiers and air strikes and that a troop reduction
had already begun this month.

       German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, speaking in Cairo, also stressed
the need for "less intensive" combat and greater aid flows, while reiterating
Berlin's solid support for Israel.

       Her Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry voiced fears about the displacement
of Palestinians and said "two million citizens cannot remain trapped in one
spot in the south in this way".

       Baerbock stressed that "we will not accept displacement. We will not accept
it in the West Bank, we will not accept it in Gaza."

       Violence has also surged in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli police
confirmed three people were killed Monday during a raid on Tulkarem to arrest a
"wanted terrorist".

       Israeli army raids and settler attacks in the West Bank have killed at
least 333 people since October 7, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian
health ministry.

       Palestinian officials accused Israel of a "brutal crime" after footage
shared on social media appeared to show a military vehicle running over a dead
militant in Tulkarem, an incident the officials said summed up a "culture of
hatred" fostered by Israeli forces.