Blinken asks Israel to set up safe areas in Gaza
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Israel on Friday to limit Palestinian civilian deaths as he worked to set up safe areas in the Gaza Strip, seeking to keep calm in the Arab world following a major Hamas attack. After a solidarity visit to Tel Aviv, Blinken, on a six-nation tour of Arab countries, again defended Israel's right to respond but also hardened his tone on protecting innocent Palestinians. "We have urged the Israelis to use every possible precaution to avoid harm to civilians," Blinken told a news conference in Qatar. "We recognise many Palestinian families in Gaza are suffering through no fault of their own and that Palestinian civilians have lost their lives," he said. But Blinken said that Israel was within its rights after the "unconscionable" attacks by Hamas. "What Israel is doing is not retaliation. What Israel is doing is defending the lives of its people," he said. "Any country, faced with what Israel has suffered, would likely do the same thing." Hamas militants on October 7 shocked Israel by breaching its southern border and killing more than 1,300 people, including children, the elderly and revellers at a music festival. Even before an expected ground operation, Israel has killed at least 1,799 people in relentless strikes on the Gaza Strip since the Hamas attack, and has cut off food, water and electricity. Blinken praised Qatar, which has longstanding relations with Hamas, for showing "urgency" in efforts to persuade the militants to free an estimated 150 hostages. But he also warned about the close US partner's strong ties with Hamas, which has an office in Doha, the Qatari capital where the militants' leader Ismail Haniyeh largely resides. "There can be no more business as usual with Hamas -- murdering babies, burning families to death, taking little children as hostages," Blinken said. Qatar's Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani however defended the Hamas office, saying it served the purpose of communication. As anger swells around the Arab world, Blinken also discussed ways to protect civilians in Hamas-controlled Gaza where Israel called on Friday on more than one million people to evacuate ahead of an expected ground invasion. A US official said Israel agreed with Blinken in the talks in Tel Aviv on "the need to establish some safe areas where civilians could relocate, be safe from Israel's legitimate security operations". "The Israelis are committed to it," the US official told reporters on condition of anonymity on Blinken's plane. However, US officials also appeared to backtrack on earlier efforts to let Gazans flee to neighbouring Egypt, saying they did not see wide support and instead wanted the safe areas within Gaza. The United States is meanwhile working with both Egypt and Israel to let Americans and other foreign nationals leave through the Rafah border crossing, the US official said. Blinken opened the day consulting in Amman with King Abdullah II as well as Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. The Jordanian king, a longtime US partner, called for "humanitarian corridors" to bring relief into Gaza and de-escalate the situation, a statement from the royal court said. Abdullah, whose kingdom is home to two million Palestinian refugees, warned against another permanent displacement, this time from Gaza. "The crisis should not be spread to neighbouring countries and exacerbate the refugee issue," the king told Blinken. After Qatar, the top US diplomat made a stop in Bahrain, meeting with Prime Minister and Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa. He is also visiting Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt on his tour. Saudi Arabia in the weeks before the attacks had spoken of progress in US-led diplomacy to normalise relations with Israel -- a landmark step for the conservative kingdom that is guardian of Islam's two holiest sites. Few expect the momentum to be maintained, with the Saudis joining Qatar in blaming Israeli policies towards the Palestinians for the flare-up in violence. Blinken also promised to work with the Palestinian Authority and praised Abbas for efforts to maintain calm in the West Bank over the past week. The nearly 88-year-old Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority enjoys small levels of autonomy in the West Bank, is a sworn foe of Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. Blinken entered his private residence in Amman and they shook hands next to a painting that depicted the veteran Palestinian leader superimposed in front of Islam's holy Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long sought to sideline the Palestinian Authority and Abbas, saying he is insufficiently committed to stopping violence, with the hard-right Israeli government rejecting the prospect of a two-state solution. (AFP)