AL-ULA, Saudi Arabia: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Monday with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince before heading to the Zionist entity as part of efforts to stop the Gaza war spiraling into a regional conflict. Blinken was expected to discuss Red Sea attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbor, during his talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Their private meeting in Al-Ula, a historic oasis in western Saudi, is the latest leg of a rapid tour of the region as concerns over the Zionist-Hamas war continue to mount. The talks were also set to touch on a potential normalization of ties with the Zionist entity after initial discussions were put on hold by the Zionist-Hamas war, a senior official said. Saudi Arabia, home of Islam’s two holiest sites, did not join the handful of Arab countries — including its neighbor the United Arab Emirates — in signing the US-brokered Abraham Accords recognizing the Zionist entity in 2020.

Blinken “emphasized the importance of preventing further spread of the conflict”, during talks in Abu Dhabi earlier with United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, a US summary of the meeting said. “This is a conflict that could easily metastasize, causing even more insecurity and even more suffering,” Blinken said on Sunday in Qatar, the previous leg of his whistlestop tour.

Vowing solidarity with the Palestinians, Yemen’s Houthis have launched more than 100 drone and missile attacks on targets in the Zionist entity and the Red Sea, disrupting traffic in the key shipping route. The United States and 11 allies last week warned of unspecified consequences if the attacks continue. But the situation is tense for Riyadh as it coincides with attempts to settle a long-running war between the Houthis and a Saudi-led international coalition.

A Palestinian militant group fighting alongside Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip reported fierce ground combat in southern Gaza, while the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said it had recorded 249 deaths in the previous 24 hours. Sirens sounded Monday in the Zionist entity to warn of a salvo of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.

The Zionist entity’s relentless bombardment of Gaza and a ground invasion have killed at least 23,084 people, mostly women and children. The Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of militant group Islamic Jihad, reported “fierce clashes” on Monday, involving machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, with Zionist troops in the southern city of Khan Yunis. Live AFPTV images showed black smoke over central and southern areas, and the sound of explosions.

Islamic Jihad later released a video it claimed showed a Zionist captive alive in its custody. The fighting, now in its fourth month, has reduced swathes of the narrow Palestinian territory to rubble, and prompted international concern over dire humanitarian conditions. The United Nations on Monday said it was “very concerned by the high death toll of media workers”, a day after Qatar-based Al Jazeera network said a Zionist strike had killed two of its journalists, including the son of Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh. The UN rights office called for the deaths to be “thoroughly and independently investigated”.

Most of Gaza’s population has been displaced, according to the United Nations, leaving people in overcrowded shelters or tents in the winter chill. Many have fled to Rafah in Gaza’s far south, where a strike on Monday ripped open a car killing two of Dahdouh’s nephews. He was recently wounded himself in a strike, and lost his wife and two other children in an Israeli bombardment in the initial weeks of the war.

Brothers Ahmed Al-Dahdouh, 30, and Muhammad Al-Dahdouh, 26, were travelling in a car when it was hit in the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah, the ministry said, adding a third man accompanying them was also killed. Muhammad worked as an accountant at a school and Ahmed was an electronics engineer, a relative said. “They say Rafah is safe, but we don’t see it is safe in Rafah. No place is safe,” said Mohammad Hejazy, overlooking the blood-soaked road.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was in Cairo on Monday to meet with President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi of Egypt, a mediator in the conflict. Washington, the Zionist entity’s main ally and arms supplier, has grown increasingly concerned over the war’s civilian death toll. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of the risk of famine and disease, with only minimal aid entering the besieged territory. Zionist rights group B’Tselem on Monday said “everyone in Gaza is going hungry” as “direct results of (the Zionist entity’s) declared policy”. – AFP