Israel-Hamas war: Biden to visit Israel for Netanyahu talks

US President Joe Biden will travel to Israel on Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Tuesday.

"The president will reaffirm United States solidarity with Israel and our ironclad commitment to its security," Blinken said.

"Israel has the right and indeed the duty to defend its people from Hamas and other terrorists and to prevent future attacks," he added.

Blinken held overnight talks in Tel Aviv with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's war cabinet.

The visit comes as concerns increase the Israel-Hamas war could expand into a larger regional conflict.

"He's coming here at a critical moment for Israel, for the region and for the world," Blinken said about Biden's visit. 

US, Israel agree on aid plan for civilians in Gaza, Blinken says

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to develop a plan to enable humanitarian aid to reach civilians in Gaza.

Blinken was in talks for more than six hours with Israel's war cabinet, with the meeting extending beyond midnight in Israel.

The US top diplomat was on the region's fifth consecutive day of round-the-clock diplomacy. He returned to Israel on Monday after visiting six Arab countries in four days.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that Blinken and Netanyahu were forced to shelter in a bunker for five minutes during their meeting after sirens rang out.

Speaking to reporters earlier after meeting Blinken, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: "This will be a long war; the price will be high. But we are going to win for Israel and the Jewish people and for the values that both countries believe in." 

Biden to travel to Jordan after Israel visit

US President Joe Biden will travel to Jordan on Wednesday to meet with Arab leaders following his trip to Israel, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

Kirby said Biden will meet with Jordanian King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

"We've been crystal clear about the need for humanitarian aid to be able to continue to flow into Gaza. That has been a consistent call by President Biden and certainly by this entire administration," Kirby said.

Biden's trip to Israel will be his strongest message yet to stand alongside Israel as it reels from the devastating terror attacks of October 7. 

Biden's administration has pledged military support for Israel, sending US carriers and aid to the region.

Biden has also called for aid to be allowed into Gaza, where the situation remains dire.

Around one million people have evacuated from northern Gaza to the south of the strip, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths told reporters Monday.

"My main concerns right now... is to get aid into Gaza," he said, "because they won't get out of Gaza."

Israel strikes Hezbollah military targets in Lebanon

The Israel Defense Forces said it was "striking military targets of the terrorist organization Hezbollah on Lebanese territory" during the early hours of Tuesday.

Since the Hamas terrorist attack on Israeli territory claimed the lives of more than 1,300 people, tensions have risen along the Lebanon-Israel border.

Hezbollah militants fired anti-tank missiles on Israeli army positions and Israeli troops shelled border areas on the Lebanese side of the border.

Several countries, including the US and Germany, have designated Hezbollah a terrorist group.  

Hamas releases video of woman it claims is being held hostage

The Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement's military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, has released a video, which purportedly shows a suspected hostage in the Gaza Strip.

The video shared on their official Telegram channel shows the woman, who identified herself as 21-year-old Mia Schem, with a wound on her arm receiving medical treatment and addressing the camera directly.

She said she was taken from Sderot, a small Israeli city near the Gaza border.

"Please get me out of here as soon as possible," she said in Hebrew.

It is unclear where, when, and under what circumstances the short video was filmed. DW News could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.

Abu Obeideh, spokesman for the al-Qassam Brigades, said in a televised statement earlier Monday that some foreign hostages would be released by the group “when conditions are ripe."

Netanyahu tells Putin no end to Gaza war until Hamas destroyed

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told Russian President Vladimir Putin that Israel will not stop Gaza operations until Hamas militants were destroyed, according to an Israeli readout of the call between the leaders on Monday.

Putin told Netanyahu that Moscow wanted to help prevent a humanitarian disaster in Gaza, according to the Russian readout of the call.

Putin expressed Moscow's willingness to work towards "ending the Palestinian-Israeli confrontation and achieving a peaceful settlement through political and diplomatic means."

Putin briefed Netanyahu on conversations with the leaders of Iran, Egypt, Syria and the Palestinian Authority, the Russian statement said.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been meeting with Netanyahu and the war cabinet for hours now in Israel, where it is past midnight.

Scholz speaks with Biden before trip to Israel

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has spoken to US President Joe Biden before he travels to Israel on Tuesday, the White House confirmed. 

"It is important to me to also express my solidarity with Israel very practically with my visit," Scholz told reporters Monday, while confirming a "later trip" to Egypt.

The German leader will be the first head of government to visit Israel following the Hamas terror attacks on the country. There are reports suggesting that Biden is also considering an invitation extended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit.

Scholz is set to use his trip to reassert his solidarity with Israel, as he has done in remarks delivered in German Parliament .

"We condemn the terrorists and we say very clearly, Israel has the right under international law to defend its citizens against such acts of barbarism," Scholz said at the Bundestag last week.

Scholz told reporters he wishes to discuss "concrete practical issues" with the Israeli prime minister and other officials, including the organization of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

He emphasized that the discussion also needs to focus on preventing the conflict between Hamas and Israel from spreading to other regions, such as northern Israel.

A string of diplomats from several countries have visited Israel thus far, including German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

Following his visit to Israel, Scholz will then travel to Egypt, although the exact details of this leg of his trip are not yet clear.

Former US diplomat says Israel faces tightrope walk going after Hamas

Former US Ambassador to Yemen, Gerald Feierstein, spoke to DW about US diplomatic engagement in the crisis, saying the US can be instrumental in pressuring Israelis to avoid inflicting large numbers of innocent Palestinian casualties.

Feierstein, who also worked as a diplomat in Israel and is now with an NGO based in Washington DC, said the US is engaged in both trying to deter any participation by Hezbollah or Iran in the conflict while also expressing "a great deal of concern about the humanitarian situation inside of Gaza."

"The announcement by the Israelis that they were restoring water to the southern Gaza area, and also, of course, the intense diplomatic engagement with both the Israelis and the Egyptians to try to get relief supplies in" were examples of the US getting results in its diplomatic efforts, Feierstein said. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv for his second visit in less than a week. He's scheduled to meet Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, along with the Israeli war cabinet. 

Feierstein warned that Israel's stated objective in Gaza, namely eliminating Hamas' leadership and structures, could prove very difficult to achieve, based on recent US experiences against Islamist militants.

"We, of course, in 2001, thought that we were going to eliminate al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is still there. We've said that we're going to eliminate ISIS. ISIS is still there. These kinds of organizations don't get eliminated. There is no military solution to this, to this situation," Feierstein said.

"And of course, the more that the Israelis are responsible for, you know, for indiscriminate military action, the more deeply embedded these organizations become within the population. So it's a situation where the harder you try, often the worse the outcome," he added.

Feierstein said Israel should be cautious to "leave room" for future talks "not with Hamas, but with Palestinians," that would hopefully lead to "a permanent, sustainable peace."

Germany takes step to ban Hamas support, outlaw Samidoun group

The Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, said it was working to ban support of the activities of the militant group Hamas and to outlaw the pro-Palestinian network Samidoun at the earliest opportunity.

"We are working with all available capacities to ensure the implementation of the measures as quickly as possible," the body's president, Thomas Haldenwang, told Germany's Bundestag in a special briefing on Monday. 

Chancellor Olaf Scholz first announced plans for the restrictions last week, in response both to Hamas' October 7 attack and isolated scenes of Samidoun activists in Germany celebrating it.