Israel-Gaza updates: Blinken, Abbas meet on restoring 'calm' in West Bank, State Department says
The top U.S. diplomat made an unannounced stop in the West Bank on Sunday.
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.
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Latest headlines:
- Blinken meets with Iraqi prime minister
- Blinken visits West Bank, meets with Palestinian Authority leader Abbas
- Blinken in Jordan reaffirms need for 'increased, sustained' humanitarian aid for Gaza
- ABC News' Ian Pannell embeds with IDF in Gaza
- Doctors Without Borders says conflict has reached ‘new low’ after ambulance strike
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.
Over 1,000 foreign passport holders leave Gaza in 3 days
A Rafah border crossing official said 355 foreign passport holders left Gaza and entered Egypt via the Rafah crossing on Friday, bringing the total to 1,032 foreign passport holders who've crossed into Egypt over the last three days.
The official said 128 Palestinians, including 113 injured Palestinians, have also crossed into Egypt.
35 Americans killed in Oct. 7 attack in Israel: Blinken
Thirty-five Americans were killed in the Oct. 7 attack in Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a Friday news conference after meeting with Israeli leaders. The American death toll previously stood at 32.
-ABC News' Shannon Crawford
Blinken discusses 'humanitarian pauses' during meetings in Israel
At Friday's news conference in Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said among the goals for his meetings are upping aid deliveries to Gaza, continuing to move American nationals out of Gaza and freeing hostages.
He said these goals would all be "facilitated by humanitarian pauses."
"That was an important area of discussion today with Israeli leaders -- how, when and where these can be implemented, what work needs to happen, and what understandings must be reached," he said.
Blinken acknowledged these pauses would not be easy to pull off.
"A number of legitimate questions were raised in our discussions today, including how to use any period of pause to maximize the flow of humanitarian assistance, how to connect a pause to the release of hostages, how to ensure that Hamas doesn't use these pauses or arrangements to its own advantage," he said. "These are issues that we need to tackle urgently and we believe they can be solved."
-ABC News' Shannon Crawford
Blinken recounts graphic video of Israeli dad, sons targeted at kibbutz
Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended Israel's military actions against Hamas at a Friday news conference in Israel after meeting with Israeli leaders, saying, "This right to self-defense, indeed, this obligation to self-defense, belongs to every nation. No country could, or should, tolerate the slaughter of innocents."
Blinken said during his Friday meetings with Israeli leaders he viewed more footage from Hamas' Oct. 7 attack, describing the videos as "almost beyond the human capacity to process."
In one video, he said, a father at a kibbutz grabbed his two sons, who appeared about 10 or 11 years old, and pulled them from the house into a shelter.
The family was "followed seconds later by a terrorist who throws a grenade into that small shelter," Blinken said.
When the dad came stumbling out of the shelter, he was shot, Blinken said.
The sons then ran from the shelter into the house, crying, "Where's daddy?" he said.
The terrorist then "casually opens the refrigerator and starts to eat from it," Blinken said.
"It is striking, and in some ways, shocking, that the brutality of the slaughter has receded so quickly in the memories of so many. But not in Israel and not in America," he said.
After sharing details of the terror inflicted on Israeli children during the conflict, Blinken touched on the images of young Palestinian boys and girls pulled from the rubble of buildings.
"When I see that, when I look into their eyes through the TV screen, I see my own children," he said.