Blinken to meet Arab leaders as heavy fighting rages in Gaza

US secretary of state Antony Blinken is set to meet Arab envoys in Jordan on Saturday as fierce battles rage between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters on the outskirts of Gaza City.

The fighting picked up pace after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a US plea on Friday for a “humanitarian pause” to allow more aid into the blockaded enclave.

Netanyahu tied any temporary ceasefire to the unconditional release of the 242 hostages still held by Hamas after meeting Blinken, who asked Israel to do more to “protect Palestinians civilians”.

Blinken is meeting Arab diplomats, including from Egypt and Jordan, who have been infuriated by the ferocity of Israel’s bombardment and fear the violence will trigger a broader conflict. Palestinians reported a night of intense aerial and artillery bombardment, including in south Gaza, where the IDF confirmed it had operated.

Amman withdrew its ambassador to Israel this week and condemned the “killing of innocent civilians . . . and a severe and unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe”.

Cairo, meanwhile, is worried that Israel will seek to use its war with Hamas to displace Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai peninsula.

At Saturday’s meeting, Blinken will be urged to refocus US diplomacy on getting Israel to agree to a ceasefire, to rein in violence from extremist settlers in the occupied West Bank, and be pressured on the urgent need for a “political horizon for the day after” the war ends, an Arab diplomat said.

“This is more or less a brainstorming meeting, involving the main parties in the region with the US to have a way to move forward,” the diplomat said. “The best solution is to have a political solution [to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict], yesterday, not today.”

International efforts to get more aid into the enclave while simultaneously creating conditions for the release of Hamas’s hostages, many of them women, children and the elderly, gathered pace but with no…