Follow Us on Google News
ISTANBUL: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday discussed the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Sweden’s NATO accession process, Fidan’s ministry said.
Blinken held some two hours of talks with Fidan in Istanbul. A U.S. official said he was now meeting President Tayyip Erdogan at the start of a trip aimed at calming tensions that have spiked since Israel’s war with Hamas began in October.
Civilians continue to bear the brunt of the Israeli aggression, with the UN warning of a deepening humanitarian crisis as famine looms and disease spreads.
The UN’s children’s agency warned that clashes, malnutrition and a lack of health services had created “a deadly cycle that threatens over 1.1 million children” in Gaza.
Israeli forces were continuing “to fight in all parts of the Gaza Strip, in the north, centre and south”, military spokesman Daniel Hagari said late Friday.
Hagari said Israeli forces were maintaining a “very high state of readiness” near the border with Lebanon following the killing of a top Hamas commander in a strike in Beirut.
