Blinken on peace mission amid US arms flow to Israel
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Egypt on Tuesday in an effort to end Israel’s war on Gaza, which has been strongly supported by his country since October 7.
Blinken – on his fifth regional tour since the bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out – met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a day after he held talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh.
The US top envoy then left for Qatar and was later to head to Israel, hoping to shore up support for a truce deal that was hashed out in Paris in January but has not yet been signed off on by either Hamas or Israel.
The United States, on one hand, tries to secure a truce in Gaza and, on the other hand, provides crucial military aid for Israel’s deadly offensive on Gaza. Washington has also vetoed UN resolutions for a cease-fire.
Israel has so far killed more than 27,500 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since October 7, when Hamas’s attack on the occupied territories triggered Israel’s onslaught on Gaza.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry on Tuesday, heavy strikes and fighting killed at least 107 people in just 24 hours, mostly women and children.
Fears grew for more than a million Palestinians crowded into the far southern Rafah area as the battlefront draws ever closer in Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned on Monday that the military “will reach places where we have not yet fought… right up to the last Hamas bastion, which is Rafah,” on the Egyptian border.
Israeli troops, with air and naval support, have been engaged in heavy urban combat centered on Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Younis.
‘No place is safe’
An AFP journalist said overnight strikes rocked Khan Younis and that two air strikes also struck Rafah.
“No place is safe, no place at all – where shall we go?” one Palestinian, Mohamad Kozaat, said after six members of his family, including his daughter, were wounded in an Israeli strike on the border town.
The truce Blinken is hoping to seal proposes a six-week pause to fighting as Hamas frees captives held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and more aid enters Gaza, according to a Hamas source.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has faced divisions within his cabinet and public fury over the fate of the remaining captives, said Israel “will not accept” demands Hamas has made for an exchange involving thousands of prisoners.
The premier’s right-wing Likud party quoted him as saying the terms “should be similar to the previous agreement” in late November, which saw a more limited ratio of Palestinian prisoners exchanged for captives.