Blinken says U.S. will 'always be there' for Israel, urges safety for civilians

TEL AVIV, Israel — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Thursday in the first leg of a diplomatic tour in the Middle East to show support for Israel following deadly attacks by Hamas militants based in the Gaza Strip.

Blinken's arrival also comes as a humanitarian crisis unfolds in Gaza, where nearly 340,000 Palestinians have been displaced by Israel's retaliatory strikes, according to the United Nations.

Israel said Thursday it would not lift its siege of Gaza — even for the transport of humanitarian aid — until Hamas releases all remaining hostages. Between 100 and 150 people, including some number of Americans, are believed to be held by the Islamist militant group that rules the Palestinian territory.

The diplomatic push, which will also include a Friday visit by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, is taking place as Israel and Gaza experience the most dramatic escalation in violence in recent memory, with concerns the chaos could spread to the occupied West Bank and different countries across the Middle East.

"You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself, but as long as America exists, you will never ever have to. We will always be there by your side," Blinken said, speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

And he urged Israel to take every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians in Gaza as it retaliates. "We democracies distinguish ourselves from terrorists by striving for a different standard, even when it's difficult," Blinken said.

The U.S. has already sent munitions to Israel, including small diameter bombs designed to be used by Israeli aircraft and interceptor missiles for Israel's missile defense system known as the Iron Dome. U.S. military and civilian personnel are also on the ground in Israel to assist with the hostage situation.

Air raid sirens sounded sporadically across Israel Thursday morning. Israeli military officials says Hamas has continued to attempt incursions from Gaza.

The death toll continues to rise, with Israeli authorities reporting at least 1,300 dead in the attacks by Hamas. Palestinian health officials say Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 1,350 in Gaza and that some 800 of those killed in the retaliation have been women and children.

Current fighting began over the weekend

Palestinian fighters launched a surprise attack from Gaza into Israel last weekend during the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. Militants infiltrated Israel's border Saturday using paragliders, motorbikes and boats and fired thousands of rockets toward the country from Gaza. Israel has responded by launching missile strikes into Gaza.

Israel is mobilizing troops along the country's border with the Gaza Strip and has continued its bombardments. The Associated Press reported that Israeli military Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said Thursday that forces "are preparing for a ground maneuver if decided," but the country's political leadership has not yet ordered one.

At least 27 U.S. citizens were killed in the Hamas attacks and 15 Americans are currently unaccounted for, a White House spokesperson said Thursday. Charter flights to evacuate U.S. citizens who remain in Israel will begin Friday. Other countries, such as China, France and the United Kingdom, have also reported citizens killed or missing in the conflict.

Blinken is also expected to push for the creation of a corridor to allow Gaza civilians to safely leave the Gaza Strip, which has been under constant bombardment from Israel.

Live television footage on Thursday morning showed huge plumes of smoke rising from buildings in Gaza. More than 2 million Palestinians have lost access to electricity, water, food and fuel supplies from outside of Gaza after Israel put the territory under full siege.

Increasingly dire conditions in Gaza

In addition to the growing number of Palestinians killed, more than 6,200 people have been wounded by Israeli bombs since Saturday, officials in Gaza said.

Israel has dropped 6,000 bombs in six days of retaliation, the Israel Defense Forces reported Thursday. The bombardment has flattened buildings and demolished "entire sections of neighborhoods," according to the United Nations.

Israel has put Gaza under complete siege, barring the entry of fuel, food, water, medicine and more into the territory. Potable water in Gaza was already hard to come by, and the territory's main power plant shut down Wednesday after fuel ran out, Palestinian officials reported.

Hospitals in the territory at at capacity, officials say, and they are running on portable generators or solar power systems. "We fear that hospitals may turn into graveyards if they are not fed with electricity," said Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza, speaking to NPR Wednesday.

The Gaza Strip's border crossings are closed in both Israel and Egypt, leaving Palestinian civilians with nowhere to escape or seek safety. More than one-tenth of Gaza's population of about 2.3 million people is internally displaced. Many have sought shelter in U.N.-run schools.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees said 11 of its employees were killed in the Gaza Strip, a toll that included five teachers, a gynecologist, an engineer and other support staff.

As the bombardment continued Thursday, residents of Gaza grappled with the possibility of an Israeli ground invasion. "I cannot imagine what would happen in the following few hours. Am I going to be dead or alive? I really don't know," Ghada Alhaddad, an Oxfam communications officer in Gaza, told NPR.

Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza after the Hamas militant group took control of the territory in 2007. Egypt was sending in some aid through its border with Gaza but has stopped these deliveries since Tuesday due to Israel's airstrikes of the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing.

Israel buries its dead

Israelis held funerals for those killed in Saturday's attack, when militants from the Gaza Strip infiltrated Israel, attacking communities along the country's southern border.

Militants overran a police station and military positions. They gunned down revelers at a dance music festival near Israel's border with Gaza, killing more than 200 people. They raided gated communities and shot families dead, and Israeli officials estimate they took at least 100 hostages to the Gaza Strip.

Hamas is expected to try to use the hostages in bargaining to free some of the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, but the group insists it will not negotiate while Gaza is under attack.

Hamas' military wing, Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, threatened to execute a civilian hostage every time civilians in Gaza die in their homes from Israeli airstrikes that come without warning. No such publicly known execution has yet been carried out.

Questions have mounted over how Hamas — whose communications and operations are heavily surveilled by Israeli intelligence services — caught Israel by surprise.

Three days before the Hamas attacks, Egypt had warned Israel of a possible threat, said House Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul, R-Texas, after a classified briefing Wednesday.

"We know that this had been planned for perhaps as long as a year ago," McCaul said. "We're not quite sure how we missed it. We're not quite sure how Israel missed it."

Blinken's diplomatic efforts will continue Thursday after he departs Israel for Jordan, where he will meet with Jordan's King Abdullah II, then with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Amman on Friday.

There, Blinken will urge Abbas to condemn the violence. Such a declaration would put Abbas in a difficult position, a senior U.S. official said, but Blinken will tell the Palestinian leader that it is important to distinguish himself from Hamas, an organization that the U.S. and Israel have declared a terrorist organization.

Palestinian Authority officials have privately told American leaders that they are horrified at the violence against Israeli civilians, the U.S. official said.

NPR's Aya Batrawy and Kevin Drew contributed to this report.

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