WASHINGTON (AP)— A top aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was at the White House Tuesday for talks with President Joe Biden’s top diplomat and national security adviser on Gaza, as Israel appears poised to expand its offensive there.
Ron Dermer, Israel’s Minister for Strategic Affairs, was meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.
Watson said the talks would cover matters related to the war including efforts to free hostages held by Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza. Dermer’s trip comes as the U.S. presses ally Israel to wrap up the deadliest phase of its offensive in Gaza.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military says it has expanded its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip to the densely populated urban refugee camps in the central part of the territory.
Residents reported shelling and airstrikes shaking the Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij camps. The built-up towns hold Palestinians whose families fled or were driven from their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s independence.
The camps are now crowded with Palestinians who fled northern Gaza in the early stages of Israel’s ground offensive.
“We have expanded the fighting to an area known as the central camps,” Israel’s military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, told a news conference.
More than 20,900 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants among the dead.
About 1,200 people were killed after Hamas raided southern Israel on Oct. 7, with around 240 people taken hostage. Israel says it aims to free the more than 100 hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza.