Over to Israel, where U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is beginning a Middle East tour aimed to bolster Israel-Gaza ceasefire brokered by Egyptian negotiators.
Hot on the trail of bolstering Israel-Gaza ceasefire in Israel is U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who will soon begin his Middle East tour there.
This came on the heels of the 11-day catastrophic Gaza war, which killed more than 250 people, mostly Palestinians, and caused widespread destruction in the impoverished coastal territory.
Now, as Palestinians are picking up the pieces amid the sorry sight, Blinken has arrived in Israel early today, to try to coordinate reconstruction.
But make no mistake, Blinken will not engage with Hamas rulers during his Mideast trip, because Hamas is currently considered a terrorist organisation, despite the predicament Gaza is currently in.
Blinken is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the region since President Joe Biden assumed office. Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and other officials greeted him on the tarmac at Ben Gurion International Airport, and rolled out the red carpet.
He will begin his Mideast tour in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was inundated with angry accusations from his right-wing based party that he had ended the war too soon. He has been fighting for his political life too, after a fourth inconclusive election in two years.
The 11-day war that plagued the already impoverished Gaza Strip was triggered by weeks of clashes in Jerusalem during the holy month of Ramadan this year. The clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters later prompted Hamas to fire rockets towards Israel, and Israel gave Hamas a taste of its own medicine by way of airstrikes, which later started the 11-day war.
An Israeli soldier and a civilian were stabbed and wounded in east Jerusalem on Monday before police shot and killed the assailant. This added insult to injury, as tensions between the two sides are escalating again despite global leaders scrambling to de-escalate tensions in the region, in an effort to avert another war.
The Biden administration had mulled things over, and hoped to extricate the U.S. from the region’s conflicts and focus on competition with China and climate change. But like many of its predecessors, it was again pulled back into the Middle East by another outbreak of violence.
Blinken will also visit neighbouring Egypt and Jordan, where he’ll be making the rounds of the countries’ leaders. Egypt’s efforts to broker a ceasefire bore fruit after the Biden administration pressured Israel to wind down the offensive.
Blinken said he will help Israel with rehabilitation work first before returning to the negotiating table, because Israeli airstrikes had damaged hundreds of homes and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
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