Israel-Gaza live updates: Blinken, Abbas meet on restoring 'calm' in West Bank
The top U.S. diplomat made an unannounced stop in the West Bank on Sunday.
ByABC NEWS
Last Updated: November 2, 2023, 3:31 PM EDT
Thousands of people have died and thousands more have been injured since the militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel retaliated with a bombing campaign and total siege of the neighboring Gaza Strip, leaving the region on the verge of all-out war.
Here's how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Mar 01, 2024, 6:03 AM EST
What we know about the conflict
The latest outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, has passed the four-month mark.
In the Gaza Strip, at least 30,228 people have been killed and 71,377 others have been wounded by Israeli forces since Oct. 7, according to Gaza's Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health.
In Israel, at least 1,200 people have been killed and 6,900 others have been injured by Hamas and other Palestinian militants since Oct. 7, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
There has also been a surge in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli forces have killed at least 395 people in the territory since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The ongoing war began after Hamas-led militants launched an unprecedented incursion into southern Israel from neighboring Gaza via land, sea and air. Scores of people were killed while more than 200 others were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. The Israeli military subsequently launched retaliatory airstrikes followed by a ground invasion of Gaza, a 140-square-mile territory where more than 2 million Palestinians have lived under a blockade imposed by Israel and supported by Egypt since Hamas came to power in 2007. Gaza, unlike Israel, has no air raid sirens or bomb shelters.
Nov 02, 2023, 3:31 PM EDT
IDF says its 'encirclement of the city of Gaza has been completed'
The Israeli military's "encirclement of the city of Gaza has been completed," according to Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.
Israeli soldiers are now "attacking positions, command centers, firing posts, firing infrastructure and eliminating terrorists in face-to-face combat," he said Thursday.
Israeli army self-propelled artillery howitzers move in a convoy with other vehicles along a road by the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel, Nov. 1, 2023.
Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images
Nov 02, 2023, 3:24 PM EDT
Kirby suggests 'pause' allowed 2 American hostages out, US looking to secure more 'pauses'
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby on Thursday suggested that Israel agreed to a temporary pause in order for the two American hostages to be safely freed last month and said the U.S. would be working toward securing more pauses.
Palestinians search for casualties at the site of air strikes on houses in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, Oct. 31, 2023.
Abed Sabah/Reuters
"The president already worked on one such pause when we were able to get those two Americans out. And that's, that's what we're kind of looking at," Kirby added. "When we're talking about humanitarian pause, what we're talking about are temporary, localized pauses in the fighting to meet a certain goal or goals -- as I said, get aid in, get people out."
He said the administration is exploring "as many pauses as might be necessary to continue to get aid out, and to continue to work to get people out safely, including hostages."
Israeli officials said there are 242 hostages in Gaza.
People hold banners with pictures of hostages that were seized by Hamas, as they protest outside a meeting held by Israeli President Isaac Herzog with families of hostages during a deadly infiltration from the Gaza Strip, in Jerusalem, Oct. 29, 2023.
Ammar Awad/Reuters
Kirby stressed that the administration isn't "advocating for a general cease-fire at this point."
"We believe that a general cease-fire would benefit Hamas in providing them breathing space and time to continue to plot and execute attacks on the Israeli people," he said.
-ABC News' Fritz Farrow
Nov 02, 2023, 2:54 PM EDT
Blinken says minimizing harm to Palestinians 'very much on the agenda' for Israel meetings
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is en route to Israel and Jordan, said this trip he's focused on de-escalation and the plight of the Palestinians.
"We will be talking about concrete steps that can and should be taken to minimize harm to men, women and children in Gaza," Blinken said.
"When I see a Palestinian child, a boy or a girl, pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building -- that hits me in the gut as much as seeing a child in Israel or anywhere else. So this is something we have an obligation to respond to, and we will," he said.
3:48
UNICEF warns children in Israel, Gaza face lifelong psychological trauma
Executive Director Catherine Russell told the U.N. Security Council, “Children in both Israel and Gaza are experiencing terrible trauma -- the consequences of which could last a lifetime.”
The secretary identified three key goals for his trip.
"First, to talk to the Israeli government about the ongoing campaign against the Hamas terrorist organization," Blinken said. "Israel has not only the right but the obligation to defend itself, and also to take steps to try to make sure that this never happens again. … We've also said very clearly and repeatedly that how Israel does this matters. We will focus as well on steps that need to be taken to protect civilians who are in a crossfire of the Hamas’ making, and we want to look at concrete steps that can be taken to better protect them."
Blinken said his second objective is getting humanitarian aid into Gaza and getting people who want to leave out of Gaza.
Dual national Palestinians and foreigners undergo identification process as they arrive from the Gaza Strip in the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, on Nov. 2, 2023.
Stringer/AFP via Getty Images
Blinken said his third goal is to try to set the groundwork for a resolution to the conflict.
The secretary added that the administration is still "intensely focused" on the hostages in Gaza and "taking every possible step that we can in concert with others to secure their release."
-ABC News' Shannon Crawford
Nov 02, 2023, 1:39 PM EDT
Total of 300 aid trucks have crossed into Gaza
Forty-five aid trucks crossed from Egypt into Gaza through the Rafah border crossing on Thursday as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens, the Palestinian spokesman for the border crossing, Wael Abu Omar, told ABC News.
A total of 300 trucks have now crossed from Egypt into Gaza since Oct. 21.
Trucks carrying aid enter through the Rafah crossing on Nov. 2, 2023 in Rafah, Gaza.
Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images
Palestinians take humanitarian aid from a truck near the Rafah border crossing in the Gaza Strip, Nov. 2, 2023.