Israel says will have an ‘overall security’ role in Gaza indefinitely

Palestinians celebrate near a destroyed Israeli tank. Pic/AP

Israel will take "overall security responsibility" in Gaza indefinitely after its war with Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, the clearest indication yet that Israel plans to maintain control over the enclave one month into a conflict that has claimed thousands of lives and leveled whole swaths of the territory.

Israeli troops have been battling Palestinian militants inside Gaza for over a week, and have succeeded in cutting the territory in half and encircling Gaza City. Food, medicine, fuel and water are running low, and UN-run schools-turned-shelters are overflowing.

The Palestinian death toll has surpassed 10,000, the Health Ministry of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said Monday, including over 4,100 minors. More than 2,300 people are missing and believed to be buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings, the ministry said. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, and Israel says it has killed thousands of fighters.

Israel open to ‘little pauses' in fighting

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was open to "little pauses" in its fight against Hamas. Lulls in the fighting are being sought to facilitate humanitarian aid deliveries and the release of some of the estimated 240 hostages that Hamas seized. Netanyahu also said there would be no general cease-fire in Gaza without the release of the hostages.

Blinken seeks G7 support on Israel-Hamas war

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken shifted his intense diplomacy on the Israel-Hamas war to Asia on Tuesday with an appeal for the Group of Seven leading industrial democracies to forge a consensus on how to deal with the crisis. As he and his G7 counterparts began two days of talks in Japan, Blinken said it was critically important for the group to show unity as it has over Russia's war in Ukraine and other major issues and prevent existing differences on Gaza from deepening.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken with Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Pic/AP

"This is a very important moment as well for the G7 to come together in the face of this crisis and to speak, as we do, with one clear voice," Blinken told Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa. The conflict in Gaza and efforts to ease the dire humanitarian impacts of Israel's response to the Hamas attack will be a major focus of the meeting. However, with the Russia-Ukraine war, fears North Korea may be readying a new nuclear test, and concerns about China's increasing global assertiveness, it is far from the only crisis on the agenda.

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