Top US diplomat lands in Israel to press for pauses in Gaza war

The United States’ top diplomat Antony Blinken landed in Tel Aviv on Friday to push for humanitarian pauses in the Gaza war as Israel said it had surrounded the Palestinian enclave’s biggest city.

Blinken, on his second trip to Israel in a month, is due to discuss with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders concrete steps to minimise harm to civilians in besieged Gaza, where food, fuel, water, and medicine are scarce.

The White House, meanwhile, said any pauses in fighting should be temporary and localised, and insisted they would not stop Israel from defending itself.

Here are the latest updates

-Israel has continued its deadly air attacks on Gaza, with at least 9,061 people now known to have been killed in the Palestinian enclave. More than 1,400 people have been killed in - Israel. 19 soldiers have also been killed since the beginning of the ground invasion.

• The Israeli military has said it has surrounded Gaza City and is pressing forward, with a spokesperson adding that a ceasefire is “not on the table” despite international pressure. - At least four Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli raid on Jenin in the occupied West Bank.
• The Republican-led US House of Representatives has passed a bill providing $14.3bn in aid to Israel, but linking it to domestic spending cuts
• The World Health Organization has warned that striking the facility, currently housing 14,000 displaced Palestinians, as well as injured and sick patients, would be illegal under international law and could be considered a war crime. -Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah will on Friday make his first public comments since the Palestinian group Hamas and Israel went to war, a speech that will be scrutinised for clues on how the group’s role in the conflict might evolve.
• Nasrallah has not given a speech since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack
• Hezbollah has clashed with Israelis at the border
• Speech anticipated in Lebanon and more widely