Israel-Gaza war
The US Secretary of State is preparing to meet with heads of state and government who have so far proven resistant to pressure from Washington
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has traveled to Israel for potentially difficult meetings with Israeli leaders and officials who have repeatedly proven resistant to pressure from Washington over their war on Hamas.
Blinken flew late Monday night from the Saudi oasis city of Al-Ula, where he was holding talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as part of a Middle East trip to build consensus on Gaza's future.
He said key Arab states and Turkey had agreed to begin planning for the reconstruction and administration of the Gaza Strip once Israel's war against Hamas ended.
The foreign minister said Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey “agreed to work together and coordinate our efforts to help Gaza stabilize and recover, chart a political path forward for the Palestinians and on a long-term concept of peace, security and stability in the entire region”.
He added that the Saudis and other Arab leaders remained interested in normalizing relations with Israel, but only on the basis of a permanent Israeli-Palestinian political solution.
“There is a clear interest in the region to move this forward, but it will require an end to the conflict in Gaza and it will also clearly require that there is a practical path to a Palestinian state,” Blinken said. “But the interest is there, it’s real and it could be transformative.”
On his fourth trip to the Middle East in three months, Blinken will try to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to begin serious negotiations over Gaza's postwar government, do more to protect civilians in Gaza and allow more aid into the territory.
“I will press for the absolute necessity of doing more to protect civilians and doing more to ensure humanitarian assistance gets into the hands of those who need it,” Blinken said.
He added that the government was also focused on recovering the remaining American, Israeli and other hostages in the Gaza Strip.
The US has offered Israel vigorous support since the war with Hamas broke out three months ago, but Netanyahu has angered Washington by refusing so far to provide detailed public plans for governing the Gaza Strip when Israel's military offensive ends and by doing so The US's preferred option is to create a unified Palestinian state encompassing the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
U.S. officials said the Biden administration has drawn up detailed plans for how the transition to such a state might work, but that Netanyahu's government remains firmly opposed to such an outcome and is not engaging in meaningful discussions with U.S. officials about Washington's proposals.
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas sent thousands of militants into the southern part of the country, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping about 240 others.
Tensions in the region continued to rise on Monday when an Israeli airstrike killed an elite Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon. It was the latest in an escalating exchange of blows along the border that has raised fears of another war in the Middle East, even as fighting in Gaza reaches another peak with a rising toll on civilians.
People carry the coffin of a senior Hezbollah member who was killed in an alleged Israeli attack. Photo: Alaa Al-Marjani/Portal
The Israeli army also claimed to have killed a Hamas commander in Syria who it described as a “central figure” in Hamas rocket attacks against Israel.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Hassan Akasha was “eliminated” in Beit Jinn, a Syrian-controlled area near the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
The Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said it recorded 249 deaths in the past 24 hours, dozens of whom arrived at Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza along with 99 wounded. According to local officials, more than 23,000 people, mostly women and children, have died in the area since the war began.
Jordan's King Abdullah said in Rwanda on Monday that Israel had created a generation of orphans through its “brutal” war in Gaza, where more than 30,000 people, mostly women and children, had been killed or were missing as a result of the conflict.
“Last year, more children died in Gaza than in any other conflict in the world. Of those who survived, many lost one or both parents, an entire generation of orphans… How can indiscriminate aggression and shelling bring peace? “How can they guarantee security if they are built on hatred?” he said.
Analysts say regional powers are crucial to any post-war Gaza governance scenario.
Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House in London, said urgent planning was needed to avoid a protracted simmering conflict, which would be the most dangerous and least desirable outcome for Israelis and their security Palestinians, would be and the region.
“The region needs a plan that lasts. Right now it's a hot potato game with everyone saying what they won't do. It is a really time-sensitive moment and it really needs to be planned immediately,” said Vakil.
Daniel Levy, analyst and president of the US/Middle East Project, said U.S. efforts to influence Netanyahu have so far been largely ineffective.
“I think Netanyahu felt very early on that he had the Americans where he wanted them, and since then he hasn't looked back, and the Americans haven't given him a reason to look back either,” Levy said.
“That's not to say there wasn't some mild turbulence … but the Americans were completely unwilling to do whatever it took to move the wheel.”
Israeli officials have sought to address growing frustration in Washington ahead of Blinken's visit by signaling concessions, including a shift to military tactics with fewer ground troops or airstrikes, and offering some policy proposals for Gaza.
The plans outlined by Israeli officials differ markedly from U.S. calls for a revived Palestinian Authority based in the occupied West Bank to take control of Gaza and begin negotiations to create a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Blinken has sought to reassure Arab officials that the U.S. opposes the displacement of Palestinians outside Gaza and instead wants Israel's Muslim-majority neighbors to play a role in the territory's future governance.
Amid fears that the bloody ongoing conflict could destabilize the volatile region, the US is calling on regional states to ease tensions. Recent weeks have seen a rise in violence in the occupied West Bank, Syria and Iraq, as well as Houthi attacks from Yemen on Red Sea shipping routes.
Smoke rises in the Gaza Strip during an Israeli military operation. Photo: Mohammed Saber/EPA
“This is a moment of profound tension in the region. “This is a conflict that could easily spread and cause even more uncertainty and more suffering,” Blinken said at a news conference in Doha on Sunday evening alongside Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
There have also been conflicts along the disputed border between Lebanon and Israel, with clashes between the IDF and Hezbollah escalating since October.
Last week, Israel assassinated a senior Hamas official in a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut, sparking a new round of more intense clashes. A key surveillance complex was damaged by anti-tank missiles fired by Hezbollah on Saturday.
After an Israeli airstrike killed an elite Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon on Monday, Hezbollah identified the slain fighter without providing details as Wissam al-Tawil, the armed group's highest-ranking fighter who was killed.
Lebanese security sources described Tawil as having played a key role in leading Radwan's elite forces in southern Lebanon.
To underscore his seniority, Hezbollah distributed pictures of Tawil with Hezbollah leaders and the late leader of Iran's Quds Force, Qassem Suleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad four years ago.
A Lebanese security source quoted by Portal described Tawil's death as “a very painful blow”, while another suggested his killing would inevitably lead to further escalation.
Eylon Levy, an Israeli government spokesman, said Israel does not want war with Hezbollah but will force the militant organization to withdraw elite fighters from the disputed border if necessary.
“We are now at a fork in the road: either Hezbollah withdraws or we push them back,” Levy told reporters.
UN experts on Monday called “a growing body of evidence” of sexual violence against Israeli civilians during the Oct. 7 attacks “staggering.” Hamas denies the abuses.
The UN also expressed concern about the many journalists killed in the war in Gaza, a day after two Al Jazeera reporters were killed in an Israeli attack on their car in what the broadcaster described as a “targeted killing”.
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