Blinken meets Abbas in West Bank
US top diplomat Antony Blinken on Wednesday met the head of the Palestinian Authority and travelled to Bahrain on his Middle East tour aimed at stopping the Israel-Hamas war from escalating. The Israeli military said it killed dozens of "terrorists" and hit another 150 targets in Hamas-run Gaza, where the health ministry said 147 people had been killed over the previous 24 hours. The bloodiest ever Gaza war started by the unprecedented October 7 Hamas attack on Israel has raged on for more than three months and killed over 23,000 people in the besieged Palestinian territory, according to its health ministry. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas spoke with Blinken of the need "to stop the Israeli aggression against Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank", which has also been torn by deadly unrest, said the official Palestinian news agency Wafa. Blinken told Abbas that Washington supports "tangible steps" towards the creation of a Palestinian state -- a long-term goal which the hard-right Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has opposed. The secretary of state reiterated the US position that a Palestinian state must stand alongside Israel, "with both living in peace and security", said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. (AFP)