Live Blog Update| Israel's genocide in Gaza
This is an entry from: Israel-Palestine live: Israel’s response to South Africa’s genocide case at the ICJ ends

Evening recap

6 January 2024 23:30 GMT

Good evening Middle East Eye readers.

Here are the main developments of the day.

In the besieged Gaza enclave, the Palestinian health ministry announced on Saturday that at least 122 people had been killed by Israeli bombardment over the past 24 hours, and 256 others wounded. 

Seven Palestinians including women and children were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli air strike on a house in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip belonging to the al-Nabris family, Palestinian health officials said.

That brought the total death toll in Gaza since 7 October to 22,722 Palestinians, with 58,166 others wounded.

Elsewhere, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul, kicking off a week-long trip aimed at calming tensions across the region. Blinken travelled to Jordan on Saturday evening.

Earlier on Saturday, Blinken and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met to discuss the situation in Gaza as well as Turkey's process to ratify Sweden's membership of Nato, Ankara's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Blinken also said the US was working with its allies to see what could be done to protect civilians in Gaza from Israel's bombardment.

In Beirut, the EU's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, met a political official of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, Mohammad Raad, as part of a push to avoid Lebanon being dragged into the Israel-Hamas war.

Earlier, at a press conference, Borrell had said that the only way to peace was a Palestinian state, adding that the prospect of a state would offer a “horizon of hope” to the Palestinians.

Other key events on Saturday included:

  • France's foreign minister said that she had told her Iranian counterpart that the risk of a Middle East regional conflagration had never been greater and that Tehran and its proxies needed to end their destabilising activities.
     
  • Bereaved Palestinians reburied bodies exhumed from a cemetery in Gaza City. Hamas accused the Israeli military of "destroying 1,100 graves" at the cemetery and "stealing 150 bodies of recently buried martyrs".
     
  • Lebanese group Jama'a Islamiya said in a statement that it had fired two volleys of rockets at Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel. The attack came after Hezbollah said it had fired at least 62 rockets towards Israel.
     
  • Pro-Palestinian protesters blocked roads outside the British parliament in London, demanding an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict and clashing with police who prevented them from marching across Westminster Bridge.

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