U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up a frantic Middle East tour Thursday following a gathering with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo.
The journey to Cairo was the final leg in his shuttle diplomacy to handle Israel’s brutal conflict on Gaza.
The go to got here a day after el-Sissi met King Abdullah of Jordan and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas within the Red Sea port of Aqaba as Washington pushes for a path ahead from the bloodshed in Gaza, even because the battle threatens to unfold additional to Lebanon, Iraq and Red Sea delivery lanes.
Egypt and Jordan warned after the talks that Israel’s crackdown, which has killed greater than 23,000 Palestinians, in accordance with Gaza’s Health Ministry, should not displace the strip’s 2.3 million folks or finish in an Israeli occupation.
Israel and its U.S. backers, nonetheless, have insisted that it isn’t Israel’s plan.
The conflict started with an incursion on Oct. 7 by Palestinian resistance teams, who killed 1,200 folks and took greater than 200 hostages.
Blinken, who has visited 9 international locations and the occupied West Bank in every week, introduced a tough settlement to Israel that its Muslim-majority neighbors would assist rehabilitate Gaza after the conflict and proceed financial integration with Israel however provided that Israel commits to finally permitting the creation of an unbiased Palestinian state.
That state would incorporate Gaza and the West Bank, the place Blinken met Abbas within the de facto Palestinian capital of Ramallah on Wednesday. Washington desires the unpopular Palestinian Authority to undertake reforms and regain credibility in an effort to take cost of Gaza if and when Israel achieves its objective of eliminating Hamas, which has run the strip since 2007.
In Egypt, Blinken was additionally prone to talk about ongoing talks with Hamas mediated by Egypt and Qatar.
He instructed NBC in an interview on Tuesday that he was hopeful Hamas would have interaction on talks on the discharge of extra hostages, after an earlier deal that noticed combating paused and greater than 100 hostages launched broke down.
Source: www.dailysabah.com