Latest developments:
- Biden, Netanyahu discuss by phone the next steps in the Israeli operation and humanitarian pauses in Gaza.
- Rocket sirens blare in several northern Israeli cities, Israeli military says.
- Two Israeli border guards were stabbed Monday in the Old City of Jerusalem. Haaretz reports that the assailant was a 16-year-old who was shot and killed.
- U.N. agencies and international charities have issued a rare joint statement calling for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza.
- People in Gaza are using donkeys to transport their dead because their mobile communications have been suspended and they cannot call ambulances, according to the BBC.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says there will be no cease-fire until the hostages taken by Hamas are returned.
- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Turkey for talks Monday.
President Joe Biden spoke by phone Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reiterating his steadfast support for Israel in its fight against Hamas while also emphasizing the imperative to protect Palestinian civilians and reduce civilian harm during military operations.
The two leaders discussed the possibility for tactical pauses to allow civilians in Gaza to safely depart from areas of ongoing fighting, to ensure assistance is reaching civilians in need, and how to enable potential hostage releases. The president also addressed the situation in the West Bank and the need to hold extremist settlers accountable for violent acts. They agreed to speak again in the coming days, the White House said.
At a virtual briefing Monday, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby expressed hope that humanitarian pauses will be implemented as soon as possible in the enclave.
He noted that Washington will continue this conversation with the Israelis for as long as it takes and said there are some indications that efforts are being made to minimize collateral damage in Gaza, though he cautioned, "I don't want to overstate that."
Kirby said we have seen many thousands of innocent people killed and each one is a tragedy, and "we don't want to see any innocent lives taken."
He said the U.S. is doing everything it can to urge Israeli leaders to be as discriminate as they can and as cautious as possible in these military operations. But he said that Israel also is up against an enemy hiding behind these civilians.
Jordan, meanwhile, said Monday it was leaving "all options" open on how to respond to what it called "Israel's failure to discriminate between military and civilian targets in its intensifying bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Bisher al Khasawneh did not elaborate on what steps Jordan would take. Jordan has recalled its ambassador from Israel as a protest of Israel's offensive in Gaza.
It also announced last week that Israel's ambassador, who left Amman shortly after Hamas' attack, would not be allowed to come back, effectively declaring him persona non grata.
"All options are on the table for Jordan in our dealing with the Israeli aggression on Gaza and its repercussions," Khasawneh, whose country signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, told state media.
Khasawneh said Israel's siege of the densely populated Gaza was not self-defense as it maintains.
Israel has denied deliberately targeting innocent Palestinians in Gaza, noting Hamas uses civilians as human shields, dug tunnels under hospitals and was using ambulances to transport its fighters.
Israel hit Gaza with more airstrikes Monday in its war against Hamas, as U.N. agencies and international charities issued a rare joint statement calling for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire as the death toll mounts.
"For almost a month" the joint statement said, "the world has been watching the unfolding situation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory in shock and horror at the spiraling numbers of lives lost and torn apart."
"Tens of thousands of people have been displaced," the statement said. "This is horrific."
The groups, including the WHO, UNICEF, the World Food Program, CARE International, Save the Children and Mercy Corps, noted that at least 1,400 people have been killed in Israel since Hamas' attack on October 7, and more than 200 people have been taken hostage.
"The horrific killings of even more civilians in Gaza is an outrage," the agencies said, "as is cutting off 2.2 million Palestinians from food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel."
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said the death toll from Israeli attacks has surpassed 10,000.
Israel has rebuffed mounting international pressure for a cease-fire, saying hostages taken by Hamas militants during their rampage in southern Israel should be released first. The U.S. considers Hamas a terrorist group.
Israel said its strikes on Hamas in the Gaza Strip had effectively split the Palestinian territory in two Sunday.
Israeli forces "have encircled Gaza City. ... Now there exists a south Gaza and a north Gaza," military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said.
Blinken's visit to region
With no end in sight to the war, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken concluded his whirlwind Middle East diplomatic tour Monday in Turkey, with tepid results in forging a regional consensus on how best to curb civilian suffering in Gaza.
Before departing from Turkey, Blinken told reporters, "We are working very aggressively on getting more humanitarian assistance into Gaza. And we have very concrete ways of doing that. Sometimes the absence of something bad happening may not be the most obvious evidence of progress, but it is."
In the Turkish capital, Ankara, Blinken met with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan after stopping in Israel, Jordan, the occupied West Bank, Cyprus and Iraq — trying to build support for the Biden administration's proposal for "humanitarian pauses" to Israel's relentless military campaign in Gaza and to contain a crisis that threatens to engulf the wider region.
Meanwhile, Israel has vowed to remove Hamas from power and crush its military capabilities.
Casualties are only likely to rise as the war turns to close urban combat.
"We're closing in on them," said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesperson. "We've completed our encirclement, separating Hamas strongholds in the north from the south."
The military said it struck 450 targets overnight and ground troops took control of a Hamas compound. A one-way corridor for residents to flee south remains available for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who remain in Gaza City and other parts of the north, according to the military.
CIA director
A U.S. official told VOA on Sunday that CIA Director William Burns is traveling to "several countries in the Middle East."
The focus of the trip includes the situation in Gaza, support for hostage negotiations and continued deterrence to prevent the Israel-Hamas conflict from growing, the U.S. official told VOA.
"The director will reinforce our commitment to intelligence cooperation, especially in areas such as counterterrorism and security," the U.S. official said.
When contacted by VOA, the Central Intelligence Agency said, "We don't comment on the director's schedule."
VOA State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching and National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report. Some information for this article was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
