Tel Aviv and Washington seal a friendship that "has never been stronger."

BarcelonaWearing kippahs and resting their hands on the Western Wall, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sealed their two countries' alliance from Jerusalem. "I think [Rubio's] visit here is a testament to the durability, the strength of the Israeli-American alliance. It is as strong and enduring as the stones of the Western Wall that we just touched," said the Israeli leader from the holiest site for Jews.

After noting that the alliance between Washington and Tel Aviv "has never been stronger," following Jewish tradition, the leaders placed their respective dreams or desires among the stones of the wall, written on a piece of paper, in an event where women were prohibited from entering—with the intention of praying.

Rubio arrived in Israel this Sunday to address "the future of the conflict" in Gaza and is expected to ask his favorite ally in the Middle East for explanations about the attack he launched on Tuesday against the Hamas negotiating delegation meeting in Doha"What happened, happened," Rubio said before arriving in Tel Aviv. "We will meet with them and talk about what the future holds." On Friday, the US Foreign Minister met with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, a long-time partner of Washington who considered the Israeli bombing, which killed a member of its security forces and five Hamas members, a violation of its territorial integrity.

According to the Israeli NGO Peace Now, which monitors the expansion of illegal settlements, Rubio will also attend the inauguration of a tourist tunnel in an Israeli settlement in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, located in the occupied area of East Jerusalem. A gesture that, according to the NGO, amounts to "US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the most sensitive area of the holy basin of Jerusalem." The 600-meter-long tunnel passes beneath Palestinian homes (many of them expropriated) in the Old City and ends next to the foundations of the Western Wall, just meters from the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque.

A trickle of families evacuating Gaza City

After the demolition of thirty residential buildings in Gaza City this Sunday, it's easy to guess what Netanyahu wrote on the piece of paper he placed at the Wailing Wall. Israeli control of the Strip's capital is getting closer. Israeli troops have been operating for weeks in four eastern neighborhoods of the city—three of which they have turned into vacant lots—and, they declare, are waiting for the population to evacuate before sending in more ground forces.

As a result, a steady stream of families is abandoning Gaza City for the south, where they hope to find refuge despite repeated warnings that the zone designated by Israel as a humanitarian zone is completely overwhelmed. Crowded into trucks and wheelbarrows, or on foot, up to 250,000 people, according to the Israeli military, have fled the city so far since the intensification of Israeli bombing. Many are reluctant to leave, due to the lack of space and security in the southern part of the Strip, where Israel continues to bomb, contradicting its own designation as a humanitarian zone. Others cannot afford it, as the prices for the journey are sky-high..

On the horizon for those resisting is the meeting of Arab leaders scheduled to take place on Monday in Qatar with the aim of pressuring Israel to abandon its offensive in Gaza. Qatar already warned this Sunday that it will not be intimidated by Tel Aviv's attacks and that it plans to continue mediating to end what the International Criminal Court is investigating as genocide in Gaza. Its foreign minister, Mohamed bin Abdulrahman, has called on the international community to abandon "double standards" and take "real and tangible measures at different levels" against Israel.

But until this happens, the trickle of deaths continues unabated. Since early Sunday morning, at least 48 people have died in Gaza, 32 of them in the enclave's capital, and the number of wounded is so enormous that medical services cannot cope with them. At Al Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza City, the overcrowding is such that doctors are having to treat patients on the floor because there are no beds available. "As you can see, in the ICU of the Al Shifa Medical Complex, we have injured children, and we treat patients on the floor," the center's director, Mohamed Abu Salmia, told Efe on Sunday, while showing a ward full of patients.