Blinken carries Arab message to Israel: keep Palestinian state hope alive

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on his latest mission to rein in the Gaza war, told Israeli leaders on Tuesday there was still a chance of winning acceptance from their Arab neighbours, if they create a path to a viable Palestinian state.

On his fourth trip to the region since October in a so far largely fruitless quest to tamp down the violence, Blinken said he would share what he had heard in two days of talks with Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Blinken met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and was then due to speak with members of the war cabinet formed in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks by Palestinian Hamas militants, which Israel says killed 1,200 people.

The Israeli offensive has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, destroyed much of Gaza and displaced most of the population of 2.3 million, creating a dramatic and worsening humanitarian crisis.

Blinken had already said he would raise the “absolute imperative” to do more to protect Gaza’s civilians and let humanitarian aid reach them. His boss, President Joe Biden, said overnight that Washington was quietly pushing Israel to withdraw some forces.

Blinken’s meetings around the region have focused on seeking a longer-term approach to the Israel-Palestinian conflict to help end the Gaza war. After his meetings with Arab allies, he said they wanted integration with Israel – also a long-term Israeli aim – but only if that included a “practical pathway” to a Palestinian state.

“I think there are actually real opportunities,” he told his Israeli counterpart Israel Katz on Tuesday.

“But we have to … ensure that October 7 can never happen again and work to build a much different and much better future.” He was due to hold a press conference in the early evening.

With U.S. support, Israel established diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in 2020 and was working to do the same with Saudi Arabia until the Gaza conflict broke out.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, speaking on Tuesday at a conference in Qatar, cited Israel’s normalisation of regional relations “at the expense of the Palestinian cause” as one of the reasons for the Oct. 7 attacks.

HEAVY FIGHTING IN SOUTH GAZA

After weeks of U.S. pressure to ease its assault, Israel says it is moving from full-blown to more targeted warfare in northern Gaza, while maintaining intensive combat in southern areas.

It said its troops had killed around 40 Palestinian fighters and raided a militant compound and tunnels since Monday in Khan Younis, the main city in the south.

After a week of comparatively low Israeli losses, Israel said nine of its soldiers had been killed, mostly from engineering units tackling tunnels, in one of their deadliest days of the ground assault.

The health ministry in Gaza said 126 Palestinians had been killed and 241 wounded in the previous 24 hours.

Sean Casey, World Health Organization Emergency Medical Teams coordinator in Gaza, said the health system was fast collapsing, and Israel was denying access to more and more of Gaza for relief trucks.

“Every day we line up our convoys, we wait for clearance, and we don’t get it – and then we come back and we do it again the next day.”

Medical staff and patients were fleeing for their lives, including an estimated 600 patients from one facility, and 66 health workers were in detention.

Only about a third of Gaza’s hospitals, all in southern and central Gaza, are even partially functional. The U.N. humanitarian office OCHA said three hospitals in central Gaza and Khan Younis were at risk of closure.

Casey said many staff at the main Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis had fled to shelters in the strip’s southernmost tip, leaving just one doctor for more than 100 burn victims.

HEZBOLLAH ‘DOES NOT WANT TO EXPAND WAR’

Biden, confronted on Monday by protesters shouting “Ceasefire now!” while visiting a church, said he had been “quietly” working to encourage Israel to ease its attacks and “significantly get out of Gaza”.

Israel’s relentless bombardment and restrictions on aid supplies have prompted South Africa to file a lawsuit in the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of genocidal actions. Hearings begin on Thursday.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog told Blinken there was “nothing more atrocious and preposterous” than that court case, noting that Hamas is sworn to Israel’s destruction.

The conflict has spread to Lebanon, where the Hezbollah militia has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas. Both groups are supported by Iran, Israel’s sworn enemy.

Three members of Hezbollah were killed on Tuesday in a strike in the south of Lebanon, two sources familiar with the group’s operations told Reuters, after a top Hezbollah commander was killed in the area on Monday.

Hezbollah said it had launched explosive drones at an army base in northern Israel in response to the killing of senior Hezbollah figure Wissam Tawil, and that of deputy Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut last week.

Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem said in an address that his group did not want to expand the war from Lebanon, “but if Israel expands (it), the response is inevitable to the maximum extent required to deter Israel”.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the assassinations. The army said an unspecified northern base had experienced an aerial attack without damage or casualties.