Blinken calls for 'extended pauses' in Gaza war

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for "real and extended pauses" in the Gaza war to allow aid delivery to residents.

During a visit to Brussels, Belgium, Blinken told reporters the United States wants to see "real and extended pauses in large areas of Gaza, pauses in any fighting, any combat, so that the assistance can effectively get to people who need it."

He said Israel has taken steps to address the humanitarian problem, and it has also "accomplished the goals that it set for itself," he said. "This should be a time to end the war."

Earlier, six people were killed in an Israeli airstrike in an area south of Beirut Wednesday, and the Israeli army issued another warning for people in parts of the southern suburbs to leave.

Lebanon's health ministry said an additional 15 people were wounded in the airstrike, which followed heavy pounding by Israel on Tuesday.

Overnight attacks in Lebanon were "intelligence-based strikes on Hezbollah weapons storage facilities and command centers in the Dahieh area, a key Hezbollah terrorist stronghold in Beirut," Israel Defense Forces stated in a post on the Telegram messaging app Wednesday.

The Israeli military said before the strikes, "numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk to civilians, including issuing advance warnings to the population in the area."

IDF also stated Wednesday that several Hezbollah field commanders have been killed in recent strikes in Lebanon.

"At the beginning of the month of October, the IAF struck and eliminated Hezbollah's Commander of the Khiam area, Muhammad Musa Salah, in the area of Khiam," IDF posted. "Salah directed many terror attacks against the State of Israel, and was responsible for the launches of more than 2,500 projectiles toward the areas of the Golan Heights, the Upper Galilee, the Galilee Panhandle, and toward IDF troops operating in southern Lebanon."

On Sunday, the commander of an anti-tank missile array in Hajir was killed, and field commanders of the Ghajar and Tebnit areas were also killed "during additional precise strikes," IDF stated.

Russia's request in Syria

Russia asked Israel to avoid launching airstrikes near one of its bases in Syria, Agence France-Presse reported.

In October, Israel reportedly hit the port city of Latakia, a stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad, who is supported by Russia and backs Hezbollah.

Latakia, is close to the town of Hmeimim, which hosts a Russian air base.

"Israel actually carried out an airstrike in the immediate vicinity of Hmeimim," Alexander Lavrentiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy in the Near East, told the RIA Novosti press agency.

"Our military has of course notified Israeli authorities that such acts that put Russian military lives in danger over there are unacceptable," he added.

US response to aid in Gaza

The United States said Tuesday that Israel has made limited progress on increasing the flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip as Washington requested, so the Biden administration will not limit arms transfers to Israel.

State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters that "we at this time have not made an assessment that the Israelis are in violation of U.S. law."

The administration told its ally on October 13 that it had one month to increase aid to Gaza, where the situation after 13 months of war between Israel and Hamas militants has unleashed a catastrophic humanitarian situation, or face a reduction in military aid. The deadline was Tuesday.

"We are not giving Israel a pass," Patel said, adding that "we want to see the totality of the humanitarian situation improve, and we think some of these steps will allow the conditions for that to continue to progress."

At the United Nations, U.S. envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council that Israel has taken some important steps, including restoring aid deliveries to the north, but that it must ensure its actions are "fully implemented and its improvements sustained over time."

"And we continue to reiterate, there must be no forcible displacement nor policy of starvation in Gaza, which would have grave implications under U.S. and international law," she said.

A senior U.N. human rights official said at the same meeting that the entry and distribution of aid into Gaza has fallen to "some of the lowest levels in a year" and criticized Israel's conduct of military operations in the north.

Israel denies it is limiting aid to Gaza, blaming the U.N. and aid agencies for slow distribution and Hamas for stealing it.

The war in Gaza was triggered when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, although about one-third of them are believed to be dead.

Israel's counteroffensive has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to local health authorities. The Israeli military says the death toll includes thousands of Hamas militants.

The war spread to Lebanon in mid-September, after months of rocket fire from Hezbollah into Israel and drone and airstrikes by Israel's military in south Lebanon escalated. More than 3,200 Lebanese have been killed, most of them in the past six weeks.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah have been designated as terrorist organizations by the United States.