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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem today as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas holds for a fifth day. Blinken is expected to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. He will then head to Egypt and Jordan. Blinken is not planning to meet with anyone connected to Hamas or visit Gaza, which was devastated during the 11-day Israeli bombardment. The Israeli assault killed 253 Palestinians, including 66 children. During a joint appearance with Netanyahu, Blinken reconfirmed Israel’s right to self-defense and repeated President Biden’s vow to help rebuild Gaza.
To look more at the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, we’re joined by Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, which revealed last week that 11 of the children killed in Gaza were taking part in a program to help them deal with trauma from growing up in Gaza. Egeland is the former U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and U.N. emergency relief coordinator. He joins us from Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.