Roving Periscope: President Biden to visit Israel, Jordan on Wednesday to contain Hamas inferno

Virendra Pandit 

New Delhi: With a grievously bruised Israel determined to annihilate Hamas, and level to the ground its stronghold Gaza Strip— and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s whirlwind shuttle diplomacy to prevent a conflagration in the Middle East yielding little, a worried US President Joe Biden is visiting the Jewish state on Wednesday to bolster efforts to hold the fireball.

President Biden will also travel to Jordan to meet with Arab leaders amid fears the fighting could ignite a broader regional conflict as it intensifies along Israel’s border with Lebanon, where the Iran-supported Hezbollah terror group is based.

After over seven hours of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials in Tel Aviv apparently failed, Secretary Blinken announced President Biden’s travel to Israel as the humanitarian situation in the ruined Gaza Strip grew direr amid Israel giving finishing touches to its proposed ground attack of the troubled Palestinian enclave, the media reported on Tuesday.

President Biden’s flash visit aims to show support for Israel, as well as to persuade it to desist from running to the precipice, as concerns grew that the raging Israel-Hamas war could engulf the entire Middle East.

After over 4,000 deaths on both sides since the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7, the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is only worsening with hundreds of thousands of Gazans fleeing south to wait for entry into Egypt.

Israel continued to mount pressure as it prepared for a possible ground attack on the 141-square-mile (365-square-kilometer) Palestinian territory to root out Hamas terrorists responsible for what US and Israeli officials say was the most lethal assault against Jews since the Holocaust during the Second World War, the media reported on Tuesday.

President Biden wants to send the strongest message yet that the US is solidly behind Israel. His Democratic administration has pledged military support, by sending two large US aircraft carriers—USS Gerald R Ford and USS Eisenhower—into the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and aid to the region.

US officials said they would ask Congress for over USD 2 billion in additional aid for both Israel and Ukraine, which is fighting Russia’s invasion.

The US worked hard to break a deadlock over delivering aid to millions of increasingly desperate civilians in the Gaza Strip, which has been besieged by Israel since a brutal attack by Hamas terrorists.

Israeli airstrikes continued to pound Gaza early Tuesday, even inside an evacuation zone where Israel had told residents to gather before an expected ground offensive. Tel Aviv has amassed troops and tanks along Gaza borders and appears set to mount a major assault on the northern part of the territory aimed at rooting out Hamas.

Wounded people were rushed to the hospital after heavy attacks outside the southern Gaza cities of Rafah and Khan Younis.

Israel has carried out unrelenting airstrikes against Hamas-ruled Gaza since the October 7 invasion of southern Israel last week killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians. The invading terrorists also took away with them to Gaza about 200 Israelis and citizens of other countries as hostages.

According to the Health Ministry there, the Israeli strikes killed at least 2,778 people and wounded 9,700 others in Gaza. The strikes have not stopped Hamas militants from continuing to barrage Israel with rockets launched from Gaza.

The combination of Israeli airstrikes, dwindling necessities caused by its Gaza blockade, and Israel’s mass evacuation order for the north of the Gaza Strip has thrown the tiny territory’s 2.3 million people into upheaval and caused increasing desperation.

More than a million Palestinians have fled their homes, and 60 percent are now cramped in the 8-mile area south of the evacuation zone, the United Nations said. Aid workers warned that the territory was near complete collapse with ever-diminishing supplies of water and medicine and with power running out at hospitals.

At the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only link with Egypt, truckloads of aid were waiting to go into the tiny, densely populated territory, and trapped civilians, many of them Palestinians with dual nationalities, were hoping desperately to get out.

Meanwhile, General Erik Kurilla, who heads the US Central Command, arrived in Tel Aviv for meetings with Israeli military authorities ahead of a President Biden visit planned for Wednesday to signal White House support for Israel.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who visited Israel for the second time in a week on Monday after a six-country tour through Arab nations, said in Tel Aviv that the US and Israel had agreed to develop a plan to enable humanitarian aid to reach civilians in Gaza. The plan could include the possibility of creating areas to help keep civilians out of harm’s way.

In Gaza, hospitals were on the verge of losing electricity, threatening the lives of thousands of patients, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced from their homes searched for bread. With taps running dry, many rationed the little clean water available and others were forced to drink dirty or sewage-filled water, risking the spread of diseases.

The Israeli military said it was trying to clear civilians for their safety ahead of a major campaign against Hamas in Gaza’s north, where it says the terrorists have extensive networks of tunnels and rocket launchers. Much of Hamas’ military infrastructure is in residential areas and in around 500-km-long subterranean tunnel network, their hideout, from where they operate.

Israel evacuated towns near its northern border with Lebanon, where the military has exchanged fire repeatedly with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group. Israel fought a vicious month-long war with Hezbollah in 2006 that ended in a stalemate and a tense detente between the two sides. Since last week, Iran-supported Hezbollah has resumed firing missiles at Israel in support of Hamas.

Speaking to the Israeli Knesset, Prime Minister Netanyahu warned Iran and Hezbollah, “Don’t test us in the north. Don’t make the mistake of the past. Today, the price you will pay will be far heavier.”

Soon after he spoke on Monday, however, the Knesset floor was evacuated as rockets headed toward Jerusalem. Sirens in Tel Aviv prompted US and Israeli officials to take shelter in a bunker, officials said.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian warned that Tehran could take preemptive action if Israel moves closer to a ground offensive in Gaza. His threat followed a pattern of escalating rhetoric from Iran, which supports both the Sunni group Hamas and the Shia Hezbollah.

The Israeli military said on Monday that at least 199 hostages were taken into Gaza, more than previously estimated. Hamas said it was holding 200 to 250 hostages.

The plight of the hostages has dominated the Israeli media since the attack, with interviews with their relatives playing on television round-the-clock. Israeli officials have vowed to maintain the siege of Gaza until the hostages are released.

In Gaza, more than 400,000 displaced people in the south crowded into schools and other facilities of the UN agency for Palestinians. However, the agency said it has only 1 liter of water a day for each of its staff members trapped in the territory.

Hospitals may run out of generator fuel imminently, meaning life-saving equipment like incubators and ventilators will stop functioning and putting thousands of lives at risk, the UN said.

Yet doctors and many hospital staff have refused to evacuate, saying it would mean death for critically ill patients and newborns on ventilators.

In northern Gaza, unknown numbers remained, either unwilling or unable to leave. Hamas urged people to ignore the evacuation order. The Israeli military on Sunday released photos it said showed a Hamas roadblock preventing traffic from moving south.