Blinken Begins New Middle East Trip as US Strains with Israel Show 

Displaced Palestinians fleeing from the area in the vicinity of Gaza City's al-Shifa hospital ride on a donkey-drawn cart as they arrive at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on March 18, 2024 amid the ongoing battles between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
Displaced Palestinians fleeing from the area in the vicinity of Gaza City's al-Shifa hospital ride on a donkey-drawn cart as they arrive at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on March 18, 2024 amid the ongoing battles between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Blinken Begins New Middle East Trip as US Strains with Israel Show 

Displaced Palestinians fleeing from the area in the vicinity of Gaza City's al-Shifa hospital ride on a donkey-drawn cart as they arrive at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on March 18, 2024 amid the ongoing battles between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
Displaced Palestinians fleeing from the area in the vicinity of Gaza City's al-Shifa hospital ride on a donkey-drawn cart as they arrive at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on March 18, 2024 amid the ongoing battles between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken embarked on a Middle East mission on Wednesday as strain showed in the relationship between President Joe Biden's administration and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

In Gaza, where hopes were dashed for a ceasefire in the nearly six-month-old war in time for Ramadan last week, residents of Gaza City in the north described the most intense fighting for months around the Al Shifa hospital. 

Israel claimed to have killed 90 gunmen in a battle under way there for a third day; Hamas denied fighters were present and said those killed in the hospital were civilians. 

Blinken was due in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and Cairo on Thursday to talk to regional leaders about efforts to secure a truce. Unusually, no stop in Israel was announced at the outset of his trip, and Israel's foreign ministry said on Tuesday it had not been notified to prepare for one. 

A US State Department official did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether a stop in Israel might be added to the itinerary later. Blinken has visited Israel on each of his five previous visits to the region since the war began. 

Recent days have seen an intensification of fighting in northern parts of Gaza captured by Israeli forces early in the war, including Al Shifa, once Gaza's biggest hospital, now one of the few even partially functioning in the north. 

"We are living through similar dreadful conditions to when Israeli forces first raided Gaza City: sounds of explosions, Israeli bombardment of houses is non-stop," Amal, 27, living around a kilometer from Al Shifa hospital, told Reuters via a chat app. 

The Israeli prime minister on Tuesday rebuffed a plea from Biden to call off plans for a ground assault of Rafah, the city on the southern edge of Gaza sheltering more than half the enclave's 2.3 million people. 

Netanyahu told lawmakers he had made it "supremely clear" to Biden in a phone call "that we are determined to complete the elimination of these battalions in Rafah, and there's no way to do that except by going in on the ground". 

Israel says Rafah is the last major holdout of armed fighters from Hamas. Washington says a ground assault there would be a "mistake" and cause too much harm to civilians. 

More than a million Gazans, ordered into Rafah earlier in the war by advancing Israeli forces, have nowhere further to flee. Israel says it has a plan to evacuate them. 

Tension 

The public tension between the Biden and Netanyahu administrations has little precedent in Israel's history, with the US a close ally since its founding in 1948. Last week, Chuck Schumer, leader of Biden's Democratic Party in the Senate and the highest-ranking Jewish US elected official, called for Israelis to replace Netanyahu. Biden called it a "good speech". 

Long-running ceasefire talks have resumed this week in Qatar after Israel rejected a counter-proposal from Hamas last week. Both sides have discussed a truce of around six weeks during which Hamas would release around 40 Israeli hostages in return for hundreds of Palestinian detainees. 

But despite months of talks mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar, they still differ on what would follow any truce. Hamas says it will release hostages only as part of an agreement that would end the war; Israel says it will discuss only a temporary pause. 

The war began on Oct. 7 when fighters from Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, rampaged through Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Nearly 32,000 Palestinians have been confirmed killed since, according to Gaza health authorities, with thousands more dead feared lost under the rubble. 

The international hunger monitor, relied on by the United Nations, warned this week of mass death from famine in Gaza without an immediate ceasefire. Israel says it is letting food in through more routes by land, sea and air, and blames aid agencies for failing to distribute it; they say Israel must provide better access and security. 

Israel says it launched its operation against Al Shifa because Hamas fighters regrouped there. The military said on Wednesday its forces had killed 90 gunmen at the hospital and detained 160. Two Israeli soldiers were killed. 

"Over the past day, the troops have eliminated terrorists and located weapons in the hospital area, while preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams, and medical equipment," the military said. It released video of a soldier unwrapping a rifle found in a cloth in a hospital office closet. 

Hamas has acknowledged a senior police commander was killed in the hospital on Monday but says he was responsible for civilian security and not part of its armed wing. It says those killed have been patients and civilians sheltering there. 

Asked about Israel's claim to have killed 90 gunmen, senior Hamas official Basem Naim told Reuters by phone: "Previous experience has proven the occupation lies every time. They destroyed hospitals, killed medical staffers, media teams, and displaced people before they claimed they killed gunmen." 



US Targets Houthis with Fresh Sanctions Action

Houthi members ride a pick-up truck while on patrol amid tensions with Israel, in Sanaa, Yemen, 18 July 2025. (EPA)
Houthi members ride a pick-up truck while on patrol amid tensions with Israel, in Sanaa, Yemen, 18 July 2025. (EPA)
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US Targets Houthis with Fresh Sanctions Action

Houthi members ride a pick-up truck while on patrol amid tensions with Israel, in Sanaa, Yemen, 18 July 2025. (EPA)
Houthi members ride a pick-up truck while on patrol amid tensions with Israel, in Sanaa, Yemen, 18 July 2025. (EPA)

The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on what it said was a Houthi-linked petroleum smuggling and sanctions evasion network across Yemen and the United Arab Emirates in fresh action targeting the Iran-backed militant group.

The US Treasury Department in a statement said the two individuals and five entities sanctioned on Tuesday were among the most significant importers of petroleum products and money launderers that benefit the Houthis.

"The Houthis collaborate with opportunistic businessmen to reap enormous profits from the importation of petroleum products and to enable the group’s access to the international financial system," said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Michael Faulkender.

"These networks of shady businesses underpin the Houthis’ terrorist machine, and Treasury will use all tools at its disposal to disrupt these schemes."

Among those targeted on Tuesday was Muhammad Al-Sunaydar, who the Treasury said manages a network of petroleum companies between Yemen and the United Arab Emirates and was one of the most prominent petroleum importers in Yemen.

Three companies in his network were also designated, with the Treasury saying they coordinated the delivery of approximately $12 million dollars’ worth of Iranian petroleum products with a US-designated company to the Houthis.

Since Israel's war in Gaza against the Palestinian group Hamas began in October 2023, the Iran-aligned Houthis have been attacking vessels in the Red Sea in what they say are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.

In January, Trump re-designated the Houthi movement as a foreign terrorist organization, aiming to impose harsher economic penalties in response to its attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and against US warships defending the critical maritime area.

In May, the United States announced a surprise deal with the Houthis where it agreed to stop a bombing campaign against them in return for an end to shipping attacks, though the Houthis said the deal did not include sparing Israel.

The Israeli military attacked Houthi targets in Yemen's Hodeidah port on Monday in its latest assault on the militants, who have been striking ships bound for Israel and launching missiles against it.