Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday reaffirmed US support for "humanitarian pauses" in fighting between Israel and Hamas to ensure people in the besieged Gaza Strip get help.
Speaking at a news conference in Amman about sparing civilians and speeding up aid deliveries, Blinken said: "The United States believes that all of these efforts will be facilitated by humanitarian pauses.
Layan al-Baz cries in agony when the effect fades of the painkillers she receives after her legs were amputated -- the result of a strike on Gaza as Israel fights Hamas.
"I don't want a false leg," the 13-year-old Palestinian tells AFP in Khan Yunis's Nasser hospital, in the southern Gaza Strip, where getting artificial limbs was nearly impossible anyway.
The impoverished Palestinian territory, under a crippling Israeli-led blockade for years and besieged since war erupted on October 7, suffers severe shortages of food, water and fuel, and medical supplies are scarce.
The protest movement that erupted in Iran last year has transformed the country both outside and also inside prison, a French-Iranian academic, who returned to Paris last month after being held in the country since 2019, told AFP.
Fariba Adelkhah was finally allowed to leave Iran in October after a four-and-a-half year ordeal that began with her sudden arrest in 2019 and saw her spend years in Tehran's notorious Evin prison.
Israel battled into the fifth week Saturday of its war to crush Hamas, showing no signs of letting up even as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken faced a rising tide of anger in meetings with Arab foreign ministers.
Blinken reaffirmed US support for "humanitarian pauses" in the fighting in Gaza to ensure desperate civilians get help a day after Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the idea short shrift.
However, US President Joe Biden said progress had been made on securing a so-called "humanitarian pause", without elaborating.
Turkey said Saturday it was recalling its ambassador to Israel and breaking off contacts with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in protest at the bloodshed in Gaza.
Ankara announced the decisions on the eve of what promises to be a difficult visit to Turkey by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Palestinian ally Turkey had been mending torn relations with Israel until last month's start of the Israel-Hamas war.
Like millions of other Syrians fleeing war, Mahmud Abdi came to Turkey hoping to return once the bloodshed ebbed.
Almost a decade later, the 30-year-old carpenter is looking to open his own workshop in the southeastern Turkish city of Sanliurfa, where a quarter of the two million inhabitants are Syrian.
"I've learned to handle new machines," said Abdi, who fled the Islamic State's short-lived "caliphate" in Syria's Raqqa. "After my course, I'm going to work for a furniture maker."
The head of the United Nations was "horrified" by a strike by Israeli forces on a convoy of ambulances in Gaza on Friday, he said in a statement, adding that the conflict "must stop."
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society has said one of its ambulances was struck "by a missile fired by the Israeli forces" just feet from the entrance to the hospital in Gaza City, in an attack it says killed 15 people and wounded more than 60 others.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets Jordan's King Abdullah II Saturday after leaving Israel empty-handed in his efforts to secure humanitarian "pauses" in its war to destroy Hamas.
Blinken arrived late Friday in Amman where he will also join a meeting of foreign ministers of five Arab countries which will be attended by a representative of the Palestinian Authority (PA) led by president Mahmud Abbas, a rival of Hamas.
Talks are being held on a "very significant" pause in the Middle East conflict to win the release of dozens of hostages taken by Palestinian militant group Hamas, a senior White House official said Friday.
"It is something that is under a very serious and active discussion. But there is no agreement as of yet to actually get this done," the official said, as fighting between US ally Israel and Hamas raged in the Gaza Strip.
With Israel's campaign against Hamas raging, the United States has renewed calls to work toward a Palestinian state, but few expect success now after decades of failure.
President Joe Biden's administration, which has faced heated criticism in the Arab world for supporting Israel's retaliation over an October 7 Hamas attack that largely targeted civilians, has in recent days subtly changed tone by emphasizing the need to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians.
