leaders at odds over how to handle the ongoing conflict between israel and hamas. u.s. secretary state entity blinken met with foreign ministers from the middle east and jordan earlier today to discuss the conflict. leaders of egypt and jordan are strongly condemning israel s offensive and are demanding an immediate cease-fire. blinken opposes a cease-fire he is pushing for israel to allow pauses in its assault on gaza. united states believes all these efforts would be facilitated by humanitarian causes. we believe pauses can be a critical mechanism protecting civilians, getting aid in getting foreign nationals out. while still enabling israel to achieve its objective to defeat hamas. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is rejecting calls for temporary cease-fire saying the country s military will only pull back when hamas frees all of its hostages but he adds his country will continue to block fuel from entering the region. meanwhile u.s. state department is urging a
secretary of state antony blinken arriving israel a short while ago. this is his second trip to the middle east in less than a month. blinken is expected to discuss ways to free the remaining hostages, minimize harm to palestinian civilians, and get all who want to leave gaza out. we ve seen americans and their families begin to come out of gaza, and we expect that to continue over the coming days. this has been a very deliberate effort on our part working with other countries to make sure we can get passage out for our citizens and citizens from other countries. blinken s trip comes as israeli ground forces now gaza city, surrounded. and air strikes continue to pound hamas targets inside the strip. the conflict has, according hamas officials, killed more than 9000 people in gaza. more than 1400 israelis have also lost their lives. secretary blinken also says while they re dealing with getting the hostages released and minimizing civilian deaths, now is also the time to come