RAFAH
Israeli ground troops surrounded Gaza City on Friday and an air strike killed 14 Palestinians who were fleeing the bombarded territory’s north to its south.
Top US diplomat Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv earlier in the day and declared that a Palestinian state was the only way to ensure Israel’s security.
Before his departure, Blinken said he would seek to ensure that harm to Palestinian civilians is reduced, in a visible shift of tone for the United States, which has promised full support and ramped-up military aid to Israel.
Ahead of Blinken’s arrival, Israel’s military said it had “completed the encirclement” of Gaza City — signalling a new phase in the nearly month-long invasion.
About the air strike, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said “the occupation committed a new massacre against displaced civilians and killed 14 citizens, children and women”.
Witnesses said the strike hit Gaza’s coastal road, which the Israeli military has previously told civilians to take to travel south.
According to the ministry, 9,227 people have died in Israeli bombardments, mostly women and children, since the Hamas raid on Oct 7.
In another development, Tel Aviv began expelling thousands of Palestinian workers back to Gaza. The workers were trapped inside Israel after its forces moved to the border with the Palestinian territory last month.
Eyewitnesses said they saw Israeli soldiers escorting thousands of Palestinian to a crossing in order to push them into Gaza Strip.
Israel had earlier said it would start sending the workers back to Gaza. “Israel is severing all contact with Gaza. There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza,” the Israeli cabinet said on Thursday.
The United Nations Human Rights Office said it was “deeply concerned” about the expulsions.
“They are being sent back, we don’t know exactly to where,” and whether they “even have a home to go to”, spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell told a news conference in Geneva.
Some 18,500 Gazans hold Israeli work permits, but it was not clear how many were in the country on Oct 7.
Although many of the city’s 500,000 residents fled south following Israel’s warning to leave ahead of a ground operation, those who stayed behind have endured weeks of aerial bombardment, dwindling supplies and daily carnage.
