Israeli troops are fighting with Hamas militants on the edges of Gaza City, as the Palestinian death toll rises above 9,000. U.S. and Arab leaders are raising pressure on Israel to ease its siege and at least briefly halt its attacks in order to aid civilians.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken was heading to the region for talks Friday in Israel and Jordan, after President Joe Biden suggested a humanitarian “pause” in the Gaza fighting to let in aid for Palestinians and let out more foreign nationals.
Roughly 800 people — including hundreds of Palestinians with foreign passports and dozens of wounded — have been allowed to leave Gaza over the past two days, under an apparent agreement among the U.S., Egypt, Israel and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas.
But the Biden administration has pushed for Israel to let more aid into Gaza amid growing alarm in the region over the destruction and humanitarian crisis in the tiny Mediterranean enclave.
More than 3,700 Palestinian children have been killed in 25 days of fighting, and three weeks of bombings that often level large swaths of neighborhoods have driven more than half the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes.
A senior Hamas official, Ghazi Hamad, dismissed Blinken’s visit, saying the U.S. aims “to give more cover for the vicious assault on Gaza” and “impose its own political solutions.”
The Israeli military’s chief of staff, Herzi Halevy, said his forces were encircling Gaza City from several directions and “fighting in a built-up, dense, complex area.”
The original article contains 1,332 words, the summary contains 208 words. Saved 84%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!