The Times of Israel is liveblogging Tuesday’s events as they unfold.
Blinken reiterates US ‘opposition to major ground operation in Rafah’ in meeting with Gallant
Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised US opposition to a major ground operation in Rafah with Israel’s defense minister on Monday, after a delegation to discuss Washington’s concerns was scrapped earlier in the day.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to send the delegation to Washington to discuss the Rafah offensive but cancelled it after the United States abstained on a UN Security Council resolution that demanded an immediate ceasefire in Gaza during Ramadan.
In his meeting with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in Washington, Blinken reiterated US “opposition to a major ground operation in Rafah,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller says in a statement.
Such a move “would further jeopardize the welfare of the more than 1.4 million Palestinian civilians sheltering there,” Miller says.
Netanyahu’s determination to launch a ground operation in Rafah, the city on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt
— Hamas’s last stronghold and where most of the territory’s population is sheltering — has become a key point of contention with Washington.
Blinken “underscored that alternatives exist to a major ground invasion that would both better ensure Israel’s security and protect Palestinian civilians,” Miller says.
The two additionally “discussed the need to immediately surge and sustain additional humanitarian assistance to meet the needs of civilians in Gaza,” he adds.
Israel said earlier in the day that the United States abstention “hurts” both its war effort and attempts to release hostages taken by terrorists on October 7.
It was “a clear retreat from the consistent position of the US,” Netanyahu’s office said.
UK airdrops 10 tons of food supplies into Gaza
Britain’s Royal Air Force airdropped more than 10 metric tons of food supplies into Gaza for the first time on Monday, Britain’s defense ministry says in a statement.
“The aid, which consists of water, rice, cooking oil, flour, tinned goods and baby formula, will support the people of Gaza,” the ministry says.
Blinken tells Gallant alternatives exist to Rafah ground offensive
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken underscores in a meeting with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that alternatives exist to a ground invasion of Rafah that would both better ensure Israel’s security and protect Palestinian civilians, the State Department says.
Gallant is in Washington on a pre-planned trip at the invitation of Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin.
A plan to send a senior Israeli delegation to Washington to discuss a Rafah offensive was scrapped by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the US abstained from a UN Security Council vote on a resolution calling for a Gaza ceasefire and a release of the hostages, ensuring it would pass.
Egypt and Qatar, who serve as mediators in truce talks, welcome UNSC resolution on Gaza ceasefire
Cairo says the United Nations Security Council resolution that passed earlier today demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the immediate release of the hostages taken on October 7 “represents the first important and necessary step to stop the bloodshed,” the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs writes in a statement to the UN.
The United States withheld its veto and abstained from the vote, allowing the resolution to pass with 14 votes in favor. It was the first time that the Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza since the start of the war in October.
Qatar, which has been hosting indirect talks on a temporary truce and hostage release deal, says it hopes the resolution “represents a step towards a permanent cessation of fighting in the Strip.”
Three rockets fired from Gaza at Sderot area intercepted; sirens blare in southern city
Three rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip at the southern city of Sderot a short while ago.
All three were intercepted by air defenses, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
Sirens sounded in Sderot and nearby communities.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have launched more than a dozen rockets at southern Israel today.