US envoy meets Netanyahu
\nIsraeli forces push deeper into the narrow alleyways of Jabalia in northern Gaza
\nGaza
\nIsraeli planes and tanks pounded areas across the Gaza Strip, residents said, as White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday amid US calls for a more focused military campaign.
\nSullivan was expected to press for Israel to go after Hamas fighters in a targeted way, not with a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, the White House said before the discussions.
\nIsrael has been pushing into the city that it says is the last bastion of Hamas forces. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled the area that was one of their few remaining places of refuge.
\n\u201cAcross the Gaza Strip, there is no safety,\u201d said Majid Omran who told Reuters his family had fled Rafah and just returned to what was left of their home in the southern city of Khan Younis that they had fled nearly five months ago.
\n\u201cWe took our children, grandchildren, and daughters and we came and lived above the rubble of our home. Because there is no place to take refuge here,\u201d Omran told Reuters inside the wrecked property as a woman cooked over a fire.
\nIsraeli forces also pushed deeper into the narrow alleyways of Jabalia in northern Gaza overnight and into Sunday, returning to an area that they said they had cleared earlier in the conflict, residents said.
\nThe Israeli military has said its operations in Jabalia\u2013the largest of Gaza\u2019s eight historic refugee camps\u2013are precise and meant to stop Hamas from reestablishing its grip there.
\nTalks, tunnels, threats
\nAhead of Sunday\u2019s talks, an Israeli official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his senior aides would try to reach agreement with Sullivan about the need for press ahead with the Rafah push.
\nPast US misgivings about the feasibility of Israel\u2019s humanitarian measures may have been allayed by the evacuation around half of the city\u2019s Palestinians in 12 days, said the official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve shown that this is not only necessary, but doable,\u201d added the official.
\nThe official said Israel would also air concerns about dozens of tunnels it says its forces have found under Rafah, running into next-door Egypt\u2013which has condemned the military sweep.
\n\u201cThese tunnels are used by Hamas to supply itself with weapons and ammunition, and could potentially be used to smuggle out of Gaza hostages or Hamas senior operatives,\u201d Deputy Israeli State Attorney Noam Gilad said during a hearing at The Hague on Friday, in a rare detailing of allegations that Egypt\u2019s state information service previously dismissed as untrue. Netanyahu has said the operation in Rafah, where Israel believes that as much as a quarter of Hamas\u2019 fighting forces are holed up, could be completed within weeks. Washington worries for the hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians sheltering there, and has cited a need not just to evacuate them but also to ensure adequate alternative accommodation.
\nAt least 28 Palestinians were killed on Sunday, Gaza health officials and Hamas said, most of them in a strike on a house in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip.
\nThe Gaza Civil Emergency Service said in a statement rescue teams have so far recovered the bodies of 150 Palestinians killed by the army in recent days, and that 300 houses had been struck by Israeli aerial and ground fire.
\nThe Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israel that sparked the war killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. About 125 of the 253 people abducted in the raid are believed to remain in captivity in Gaza.
\nAt least 35,386 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since Oct. 7, according to the enclave\u2019s health ministry. Aid agencies have warned of widespread hunger and shortages of fuel and medical supplies. The US military said on Friday trucks had started moving aid ashore from a temporary pier built by its forces, the first to reach the besieged enclave by sea in weeks.
\nThe Popular Resistance Committee (PRC), an armed group that fights alongside Hamas in Gaza, released a statement saying the pier had been built to ease political pressure on Israel, and that any Israeli or US troops on its territory would be considered a legitimate target.
\nOn Saturday, Hamas also raised concerns about the pier, warned against any foreign military force in Gaza, but made no direct threats.
\nIn March, when President Joe Biden announced his country\u2019s pier construction plans, he said: \u201cNo US boots will be on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US envoy meets Netanyahu Israeli forces push deeper into the narrow alleyways of Jabalia in northern Gaza Gaza Israeli planes and tanks pounded areas across the Gaza Strip, residents said, as White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday amid US calls for a more focused military campaign. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-408090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n