🔴 Live: Arab rapprochement with Israel ‘best way’ to isolate Iran, Blinken says

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (R) meets US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Cairo on January 11, 2024. © Handout Egyptian presidential office via AFP

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday said a rapprochement between Israel and Arab countries was the best way to isolate Iran and its proxies. The comments came after the top US diplomat met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo as he concluded a week of shuttle diplomacy aimed at containing a regional spillover of the Israel-Hamas war. Follow our liveblog for all the latest developments.

Summary:

• An Arab rapprochement with Israel is "the way" to isolate Iran, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Egypt on Thursday as he concluded a week of shuttle diplomacy aimed at containing a regional spillover of the Israel-Hamas war.
• The International Court of Justice in The Hague opened hearings in a case brought by South Africa claiming Israel's war against Hamas militants in Gaza violates the 1948 Genocide Convention.
• Israeli military operations in Gaza have focused on the southern city of Khan Younis and urban refugee camps in the territory's centre in recent days.
• Gaza's entire 2.3 million population is in a food crisis, with 576,000 people at catastrophic or starvation levels, according to a UN World Food Programme report issued at the end of December.
• Israeli officials say 1,139 people were killed in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks in southern Israel, among them 695 Israeli civilians including 36 children. At least 23,469 people have been killed and 59,604 wounded in Israel's ensuing assault on the Gaza Strip, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave.

Yesterday's key developments:

• UK and US naval forces "repelled the largest attack by the Iranian-backed Houthis in the Red Sea to date", British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said. 
• The UN Security Council on Wednesday demanded Yemen's Houthi rebels immediately end attacks on ships in the Red Sea and cautioned against escalating tensions while implicitly endorsing a US-led task force defending vessels.                 
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas that the US backs "tangible steps" towards a Palestinian state. 
• Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called for increased pressure to end Israel’s “aggression” in Gaza in a statement released after the two leaders met Abbas at a summit Wednesday in the Jordanian city of Aqaba.

About casualty figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry:

Gaza’s health ministry collects data from the enclave’s hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent.

The health ministry does not report how Palestinians were killed, whether from Israeli airstrikes and artillery barrages or errant Palestinian rocket fire. It describes all casualties as victims of “Israeli aggression”.

The ministry also does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. 

Throughout four wars and numerous skirmishes between Israel and Hamas, UN agencies have cited the Hamas-run health ministry’s death tolls in regular reports. The International Committee of the Red Cross and Palestinian Red Crescent also use the numbers.

In the aftermath of war, the UN humanitarian office has published final death tolls based on its own research into medical records. The UN's counts have largely been consistent with the Gaza health ministry’s, with small discrepancies. 

For more on the Gaza health ministry’s tolls, click here.

(FRANCE 24 with AP) 

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)