www.nytimes.com Open in urlscan Pro
151.101.193.164  Public Scan

URL: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02/05/world/us-strikes-israel-hamas-news
Submission: On February 05 via manual from US — Scanned from US

Form analysis 0 forms found in the DOM

Text Content

Skip to contentSkip to site index
Search & Section Navigation
Section Navigation
SEARCH

SUBSCRIBE FOR $1/WEEKLog in
Monday, February 5, 2024
Today’s Paper
SUBSCRIBE FOR $1/WEEK

Middle East Crisis

 * Updates
 * Iran’s Control Over Proxy Forces
 * The Rise of the Houthis
 * Economic Damage
 * Israel-Hamas War

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT


Current time in:

Jerusalem Feb. 5, 5:41 p.m.

LiveUpdated 
Feb. 5, 2024, 9:35 a.m. ET6 minutes ago
6 minutes ago


MIDDLE EAST CRISISBLINKEN ARRIVES IN MIDEAST TO RALLY SUPPORT FOR CEASE-FIRE
PLAN


 * Share full articleShare free access
 * 
 * 

 1. Destroyed buildings in Gaza City.
    Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
 2. Palestinian children receiving food aid in Rafah.
    Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters
 3. Israeli soldiers near the border with Gaza.
    Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
 4. Palestinians carrying a body from a destroyed mosque in Deir al Balah, Gaza.
    Mohammed Saber/EPA, via Shutterstock
 5. Smoke rising above Khan Younis.
    Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
 6. The funeral of an Israeli soldier at Mount Herzl National Cemetery in
    Jerusalem.
    Amir Levy/Getty Images
 7. Treating wounded children at a hospital in Deir al Balah.
    Adel Hana/Associated Press




HERE’S WHAT WE KNOW:

The U.S. secretary of state aims to prevent the Israel-Hamas conflict from
widening further. Hamas is still discussing a proposal to pause fighting and
release hostages, an affiliated broadcaster reported.

 * Blinken arrives in Saudi Arabia, hoping to rally support for a peace
   framework for Gaza.

 * Hamas is still weighing a proposal to halt fighting.

 * Israelis cancel a flower festival near Gaza after residents say, ‘Don’t
   come.’

 * Biden has ordered further retaliation over the killings of U.S. soldiers,
   officials say.

 * Here’s how the latest U.S.-led strikes have unfolded.


BLINKEN ARRIVES IN SAUDI ARABIA, HOPING TO RALLY SUPPORT FOR A PEACE FRAMEWORK
FOR GAZA.

Image

Antony J. Blinken, the secretary of state, arriving in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on
Monday. He was greeted by Mohammed Al-Ghamdi of the Saudi foreign affairs
ministry.Credit...Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press


Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken began a Middle East trip on Monday that is
meant to prevent a broader war in the region, and to rally allies around a
proposal to release hostages held in Gaza. The visit comes as the Biden
administration pursues retaliatory strikes against Iran-backed militias that
have targeted U.S. troops.

Mr. Blinken landed in Saudi Arabia in his fifth trip to the region since the
Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. U.S. officials said he hopes to advance talks on a
series of interlocking deals to end the war in Gaza and will hold meetings with
leaders in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the West Bank — all key
players in negotiations over a potential pause in the fighting.

The Biden administration and its Arab allies are still awaiting a response from
Hamas to a framework for a deal that would involve the exchange of more than 100
Israeli hostages held in Gaza for a pause in fighting and the release of
Palestinians detained in Israeli jails.

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to detail the diplomatic
efforts, said Mr. Blinken will tell American allies in the region that the Biden
administration’s recent strikes against Iran-backed militias should not be
interpreted as an escalation of fighting in the Middle East.

The U.S. has conducted dozens of military strikes in recent days on targets in
Iraq and Syria, in retaliation for the killing of three U.S. service members at
a base near the Syrian border in Jordan. And American and British warplanes,
with support from allies, have carried out a new round of airstrikes against the
Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen in an effort to deter the group from
attacking ships in the Red Sea.

In Israel, Mr. Biden’s top diplomat will convey American concerns about the
rising number of civilian deaths in Gaza. More than 27,000 Palestinians have
been killed since Oct. 7, according to the Gazan health ministry, and nearly two
million people have been displaced by the fighting.

“We’ve been equally clear that we have to look out for and respond to the
immense and terrible suffering of the Palestinian people,” Mr. Biden’s national
security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Sunday. “And that means pressing Israel
on issues related to the humanitarian assistance that we have helped unlock and
get into the Gaza Strip, and there needs to be much more of it.”

Mr. Blinken will also discuss what diplomats call the “day-after” plans for
administering Gaza after the fighting ends, including a possible role for the
Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West
Bank.

The Biden administration is also hoping to make progress toward getting Saudi
Arabia to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, a long-term objective that
the United States sees as important to stabilizing the Middle East. Under a
proposed deal, the United States would offer Saudi Arabia a defense treaty, help
with a civilian nuclear program and increase arms sales, while the Saudis and
Americans would, in theory, get Israel to accept conditions for concrete steps
toward the creation of a Palestinian state in return for Saudi recognition.

— Zolan Kanno-Youngs reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Show more


HAMAS IS STILL WEIGHING A PROPOSAL TO HALT FIGHTING.

Image

A destroyed building in Rafah, Gaza, on Sunday.Credit...Haitham Imad/EPA, via
Shutterstock


Israel was waiting on Monday for Hamas officials to respond to a proposal to
pause the fighting in the Gaza Strip and release the remaining hostages there,
as Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken returned to the region seeking to rally
support for such a deal.

A broadcaster affiliated with Hamas, Al-Aqsa, reported on Sunday that Hamas was
still holding consultations on the proposal, a week after it was formulated.
Leaders of the group had previously signaled that substantial gaps remained
between the two sides, even as representatives from the United States, Egypt and
Qatar sought common ground.

Mr. Blinken, who landed in Saudi Arabia on Monday afternoon, is hoping to
advance talks on a series of interlocking deals to end the war in Gaza, and a
deal for a hostage release will be central to that effort.

Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, told CBS’s “Face the
Nation” on Sunday that “the ball is in Hamas’s court.”

A deal that would release hostages, pause fighting and allow humanitarian aid to
reach Gaza is of “paramount” importance, he added.

“We’re going to press for it relentlessly, as the president has done, including
recently in calls with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar, the two countries that
are our central brokers in this effort,” Mr. Sullivan said.

The Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, during which Israeli officials have said about
1,200 people were killed and more than 200 others taken hostage, ignited a war
with Israel and touched off a wider crisis in the Middle East. Israel has traded
fire with members of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthi militia that controls
part of Yemen has fired on ships traveling to and from the Suez Canal.

Other Iran-backed militants have launched attacks against U.S. bases in the
region, including one recently that the Biden administration said killed three
U.S. soldiers in Jordan.

The United States has responded to the Houthi attacks with repeated strikes,
including on Sunday, and to the Jordan attack with a separate series of military
strikes this weekend against Iranian forces and the militias they support at
seven sites in Syria and Iraq. Top U.S. national security officials said on
Sunday that further retaliation against Iran-backed militias was still planned.

But Mr. Sullivan said he believed those efforts were a separate issue from the
talks intended to reach a cease-fire deal that has eluded both sides since a
one-week pause in November.

“We believe that the steps that we took on Friday and the steps we took against
the Houthis last night are not connected to the hostage negotiations,” he told
NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And we believe that now, at this point, it’s up to
Hamas to come forward and respond to what is a serious proposal.”

— Aaron Boxerman and Michael D. Shear

Show more


Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT




ISRAELIS CANCEL A FLOWER FESTIVAL NEAR GAZA AFTER RESIDENTS SAY, ‘DON’T COME.’

Image

A couple in a field of red anemones near Kibbutz Be’eri, Israel, near the border
with Gaza, in 2018.Credit...Uriel Sinai for The New York Times


The red anemones that carpet the fields and forests of a strip of southern
Israel along the Gaza border this time of year usually draw multitudes.
Day-trippers typically flock to a monthlong nature festival there known as Red
South.

But on Friday, organizers abruptly canceled most of the festival events just as
they were about to begin, after criticism from residents of the border
communities that were worst hit by the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7. Thousands of
border residents are still displaced from their homes, many are still in
mourning over the attacks that Israeli officials said killed about 1,200 people,
and some fear for the fate of relatives who were abducted to Gaza on Oct. 7 and
are still being held hostage.

“One could write countless clichés about blood and land, about returning,
blooming and growth,” one resident of the border area, Bar Heffetz, wrote in a
Facebook post on Jan. 30, days before the decision to cancel. But when he saw
the signs and toilets for visitors going up in the forests, he said he had two
words to share: “Don’t come.”

“To make a picnic here is like having a party in your neighbor’s home while he
is in the hospital in intensive care, like invading a place when the hosts are
absent,” he wrote.

The organizers — a local tourism board working with several regional councils
and the Jewish National Fund, a forestry and land development organization — had
planned a limited, lower-key version of Red South for the weekends of February,
mindful of the sensitivities as well as the continued risk of rocket fire from
Gaza, where Israel is waging war against Hamas. The military had issued
instructions and a map for the public marking the roads closest to the border as
off-limits.

One event still scheduled to take place is an organized march through the
anemone fields on Feb. 16 in memory of Ofir Libstein, a regional council head
and a founder of Red South who was shot and killed on Oct. 7 when he left his
house to try to defend his village, Kfar Aza.

“We are attentive to, and share in, the pain of the residents of the area,” the
organizers said in a statement on Friday announcing the cancellations. They said
that events including guided hikes, a footrace dedicated to the hostages and an
agricultural fair had been called off, but added that local businesses that had
reopened would still welcome visitors who arrive independently.

— Isabel Kershner reporting from Jerusalem

Show more


BIDEN HAS ORDERED FURTHER RETALIATION OVER THE KILLINGS OF U.S. SOLDIERS,
OFFICIALS SAY.

Image

John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, at the White House
last month.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times


Top U.S. national security officials said Sunday that President Biden had
ordered further retaliation to the killings of three service members by
Iran-backed militias, but declined to say when or how it would be carried out.

The officials’ comments followed dozens of military strikes on Friday by U.S.
forces on targets in Iraq and Syria. Officials said they were still assessing
the effects of those strikes, but they believed they had degraded the ability of
the militias to attack U.S. forces.

“The president was clear when he ordered them and when he conducted them that
that was the beginning of our response and there will be more steps to come,”
Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, said on CNN’s “State
of the Union.”

Mr. Sullivan said he did not want to “telegraph our punches” by revealing
details of future action. And, he added, the president was trying to calibrate
his responses to avoid a sharp escalation of the fighting in the Middle East.

John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, rejected criticism
from Republican lawmakers who have accused the administration of waiting too
long — nearly a week — after the three service members were killed by a drone
attack at a base in Jordan, near the border with Syria.

“You want to do this in a deliberate way,” Mr. Kirby said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“You want to carefully select your targets. You want to make sure that all the
parameters are in place to have good effects, including factoring in the
weather. I mean, these attacks were using manned aircraft. You want to make sure
your pilots can get in and get out safely.”

Mr. Kirby also rejected calls from some lawmakers in both parties for the
president to request specific authorization from Congress — which has the
constitutional power to declare war — before continuing with military actions in
the Middle East.

Mr. Kirby cited the president’s role as detailed in the Constitution.

“The president is acting consistent with his Article Two responsibilities as
commander in chief,” he said. “These are self-defense actions that we’re taking
to prevent and to take away capability from these groups from targeting our
troops and our facilities.”

— Michael D. Shear reporting from Washington

Show more

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT




HERE’S HOW THE LATEST U.S.-LED STRIKES HAVE UNFOLDED.

Image

The rubble of a destroyed building in Al-Qaim, Iraq, on Saturday after a U.S.
airstrike the night before.Credit...Reuters


The United States has led a major wave of retaliatory strikes in the Middle
East, hitting scores of targets belonging to Iranian-backed armed groups since
Friday. The strikes are a sharp escalation of hostilities in the region, one
that President Biden had sought to avoid since the war between Israel and Hamas
in Gaza began in October.

Here is how the latest strikes have unfolded.

Jan. 28: Three U.S. service members were killed and dozens of others were
injured in a drone attack on their remote military outpost in Jordan, the
Pentagon said. They were the first known American military fatalities from
hostile fire in the Middle East since October, when regional tensions rose with
the start of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

The Biden administration said the drone had been launched by an Iran-backed
militia from Iraq, and Mr. Biden pledged to respond. The U.S. has blamed
Iranian-backed armed groups for launching more than 150 attacks since October on
U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East.

Jan. 30: Mr. Biden said he had decided on a response to the attack in Jordan,
but did not say what it would be. Some Republican lawmakers called for a direct
strike against Iran, but Mr. Biden’s advisers said he was determined to avoid a
wider regional conflict.

Friday: The United States carried out airstrikes on more than 85 targets in
Syria and Iraq, aiming at Iranian-backed forces including the group it said was
responsible for the Jordan strike. The Pentagon said the strikes targeted
command and control operations, intelligence centers, weapons facilities and
bunkers used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force and
affiliated militia groups.

Afterward, U.S. officials said that Mr. Biden had not seriously considered
striking inside Iran, and that by targeting facilities used by the powerful Quds
Force, while not trying to take out its leadership, the United States sought to
signal that it did not want all-out war.

Saturday: American and British warplanes, with support from six allies, launched
strikes at dozens of sites in Yemen controlled by Houthi militants. A joint
statement from the allies said that the targets included weapons storage
facilities, missile launchers, air defense systems and radars, and that the
strikes were intended to deter the Houthis’ attacks on Red Sea shipping.

Sunday: Shortly after the Houthis said they would respond to the U.S. and
British strikes, American forces said they had carried out another attack on the
group, destroying a cruise missile that had posed “an imminent threat to U.S.
Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region.”

— Shashank Bengali

Show more
 * Share full articleShare free access
 * 
 * 




Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT




SITE INDEX




SITE INFORMATION NAVIGATION

 * © 2024 The New York Times Company

 * NYTCo
 * Contact Us
 * Accessibility
 * Work with us
 * Advertise
 * T Brand Studio
 * Your Ad Choices
 * Privacy Policy
 * Terms of Service
 * Terms of Sale
 * Site Map
 * Canada
 * International
 * Help
 * Subscriptions



Enjoy unlimited access to all of The Times.

See subscription options