Gaza war’s ‘darkest moment’ unfolding in north, United Nations says

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi urged US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to put pressure on Israel over the deteriorating humanitarian situation and the mass displacement of civilians in the north.

“We look at northern Gaza and we do see ethnic cleansing taking place, and that has got to stop,” he said at the start of a meeting in London.

Many Palestinians believe the Israeli military is implementing out the so-called “Generals’ Plan” in the north, which would see the forced displacement of all of the estimated 400,000 civilians there to the south followed by a siege of any remaining Hamas fighters.

The Israeli military has denied having such a plan and that it is making sure that civilians get out of harm’s way.

Safadi also warned that the Middle East stood on the “brink of regional war”, adding that every time he met Blinken the situation was getting worse, “not for lack of us trying but because we do have an Israeli government that is not listening to anybody, and that has got to stop”.

“The only path to save the region from that is for Israel to stop the aggressions on Gaza, on Lebanon, stop unilateral measures, illegal measures in the West Bank, that is also pushing the situation to the abyss,” he stated.

Blinken met with Arab leaders and foreign ministers in the UK following a diplomatic tour of the Middle East.

The US is believed to be working on a plan for post-conflict Gaza, trying to get buy-in from Arab countries even though progress on a ceasefire and hostage deal for Gaza has been stalled for weeks.

Blinken said he was having important conversations “on ending the war in Gaza and charting a path for what comes next”. He also said there was a “sense of real urgency in getting a diplomatic resolution” to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

On Thursday, Israel said it would send the head of its Mossad intelligence agency to Doha on Sunday to meet the CIA director and Qatar’s prime minister amid renewed efforts to restart the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release talks.

It came after a Hamas delegation met Egyptian security officials in Cairo. Hamas said there had been no change in its conditions for a deal, which include the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 42,840 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.