US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington is working “very aggressively” to increase the amount of aid reaching civilians in Gaza after holding two-and-a-half-hour bilateral talks in Ankara with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan that focused on ways to mitigate matters. The humanitarian toll of the war between Israel and Hamas.
“We are working, as I said, very aggressively to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza and we have very concrete ways to do that,” Antony Blinken said, adding: “I think we will see in the coming days that aid can expand.” In important ways.”
The top US diplomat said that “a temporary pause could help” ensure that more aid reaches civilians, stressing that “we know the deep concern here (in Turkey) about the heavy losses… in Gaza and its civilians, a concern that we share, and that we are working on.” “Every day, we are communicating with the Israelis about steps they can take to reduce civilian casualties.”
Regarding humanitarian aid in Gaza, Anthony Blinken said: “We have made good progress in recent days on expanding” the aid reaching Gaza, concluding an exhausting diplomatic tour in the Middle East after only limited success in efforts to create a regional consensus. Before leaving Türkiye, he said: “This is all a work in progress. Obviously we don’t agree on everything, but there are shared views on some of the imperatives of the moment that we are working on together.
We have reached out to the Israelis about steps they can take to reduce civilian casualties. As I said, we are working very hard to get more humanitarian aid to Gaza. “We are very focused on the hostages held by Hamas, including Americans, and we are doing everything we can to bring them home.”
This comes as Israeli forces are expected to enter Gaza City and are likely to face militants fighting street to street using a vast network of tunnels, with the number of casualties rising in the month-long war that has already killed more than 9,700 Palestinians and more than 1,400. person. People, mostly civilians, in Israel.
However, Antony Blinken did not meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who strongly criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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