The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, met senior Jordanian and other Arab officials in Amman on Saturday in the latest effort by Washington to avert a regional escalation of the war between Israel and Hamas, ease the acute humanitarian crisis in Gaza and build support for planning a post-conflict future for the territory.
The trip was Blinken’s second to the Middle East since the conflict began almost a month ago but came against the backdrop of further civilian casualties in Gaza and an apparent snub from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
On Saturday, Palestinians reported a deadly Israeli strike on a UN-run school in northern Gaza serving as a shelter.
Witnesses said the strike hit al-Fakhoura school in Jabalia, where thousands of evacuees were living. At least 15 people died and dozens more were wounded, said the Gaza health ministry official Mohammad Abu Selmeyah.
Juliette Touma, the director of communication for the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), confirmed to Reuters that the UN-run school had been hit.
She said there were children among the casualties, but that UNRWA had not yet been able to verify the exact death toll.
“At least one strike hit the schoolyard where there were tents for displaced families. Another strike hit inside the school where women were baking bread,” Touma said by phone.
There is no sign that Israel will ease its effort to “crush” Hamas in Gaza and Netanyahu has largely ignored Blinken’s blunt warning that Israel risks losing any hope of an eventual peace deal with the Palestinians unless it eases the humanitarian crisis there.
The month-long war was triggered when Hamas militants launched a bloody raid across the border into Israel on 7 October, killing more than 1,400 people, mainly civilians, and taking 241 hostages.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says more than 9,220 people have been killed in Israeli bombardments since then, most of them children or women.
On Friday, Blinken had flown into Israel to urge Netanyahu to temporarily stop the military offensive to allow aid into the territory, amid rising concerns over civilian casualties as the fighting intensifies.
US officials have said they hope a pause in the fighting will allow humanitarian aid to reach desperate civilians in Gaza and help negotiations to free the hostages seized by Hamas.
However, after meeting Blinken in Tel Aviv on Friday, Netanyahu warned there could be no “temporary truce” in Gaza unless Hamas released the hostages.
Despite Netanyahu’s statement that the offensive in Gaza would continue “with full force”, a senior White House official said talks on a pause in fighting were ongoing.
In Jordan, Blinken first met Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, whose economically and politically ravaged country is home to Iran’s proxy militia Hezbollah.
Clashes between Hezbollah and the Israeli military have flared along the border between the two countries in recent weeks, killing six Israeli soldiers and one civilian, and an estimated 50 fighters from the Islamist organisation. There are widespread concerns that the fighting could flare into a full-scale confrontation.
Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, on Friday gave his first major speech since the Hamas terrorist attacks on 7 October, but did not commit his organisation to greater involvement in the current conflict.
Nasrallah stressed, however, that Hezbollah was not scared by a US deployment of two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean.
Blinken thanked Mikati for “preventing Lebanon from being pulled into a war that the Lebanese people do not want”, said state department spokesperson Matthew Miller.
Later on Saturday, Blinken was to hold group talks with the foreign ministers of Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the chair of the PLO executive committee. All parties have denounced Israel’s tactics against Hamas, which they say constitute unlawful collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
Arab states have thus far resisted American suggestions that they play a larger role in the latest Middle East crisis.
The group meeting with Blinken was convened by Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman al-Safadi, who said the gathering was organised “in the context of their efforts aimed at stopping the Israeli war on Gaza and the humanitarian catastrophe it is causing”, according to the ministry.
Egyptian officials said there was consensus among Arab governments involved in discussions with the US to resist “any talks” on the postwar period in Gaza before establishing a ceasefire and allowing the delivery of more humanitarian aid and fuel to Gaza.
They said Egypt, in coordination with Qatar, has proposed humanitarian pauses of fighting for six to 12 hours every day to permit aid deliveries, evacuations of seriously injured to Egypt and the entry of fuel. The United Nations would oversee the delivery of fuel to hospitals and other vital civilian infrastructure.
The US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Washington was in constant dialogue with Israel, “asking hard questions” on points such as “the objectives you’re seeking, and an honest assessment of whether you’re achieving them”.
The Israeli military said it would enable Palestinians to travel on a main Gaza Strip highway on Saturday as part of its efforts to encourage civilians to evacuate southward away from areas that are the focus of its war with Hamas.
In a social media post in Arabic, the military said the Salah al-Din road could be used between 1pm and 4pm local time. “If you care about yourself and your loved ones, heed our instruction to head south,” it added.
Gaza has already suffered massive destruction, and now faces acute shortages of food, clean water and medicines. More than a third of hospitals are out of action and those remaining are overwhelmed by casualties.
On Friday evening, the health ministry reported that an airstrike had hit a convoy of ambulances outside Gaza’s largest hospital, killing 15 people and injuring 60 others.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said they carried out an airstrike on an ambulance they said was being used by Hamas, adding that “a number of Hamas terrorist operatives” were killed in the strike.
Earlier in Friday, an IDF spokesperson accused Hamas of using ambulances to transport “operatives”.
Hamas official Izzat El Reshiq said allegations its fighters were present were “baseless”. Ashraf al-Qidra, a spokesperson for Gaza’s health ministry, said the ambulance was part of a convoy that Israel targeted near Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital.
Pictures of the aftermath of Saturday’s strike on a school showed broken furniture and other belongings lying on the ground, patches of blood spilled on the ground and people crying.
“I was standing here when three bombings happened, I carried a body and another decapitated body with my own hands,” a young boy said in video obtained by Reuters, crying in despair. “God will take my vengeance.”
One man asked angrily: “Since when has it become normal to strike shelters? This is so unfair.”
“At least one strike hit the schoolyard where there were tents for displaced families. Another strike hit inside the school where women were baking bread,” said Touma of the UNRWA.
Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributes to this report
