US supports concrete steps for Palestinian state

GAZA/ WESTERN NEIGHBORHOOD:

Top US diplomat Anthony Blinken told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday that Washington supports “tangible steps” towards the creation of a Palestinian state.

Abbas is later to discuss a “push for an immediate ceasefire” in talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the Red Sea port of Aqaba.

As the US secretary of state arrived under tight security in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, protesters held signs reading “Stop the genocide”, “Free Palestine” and “Blinken out”.

Blinken reiterated Washington’s longstanding position that a Palestinian state must stand alongside Israel, “and live in peace and security,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.

Palestinian statehood was expected after the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, but talks have been dead for years.

The Israeli government has shown no interest in rekindling negotiations, and the Palestinian leadership remains divided between the Palestinian Authority, led by Abbas, and Hamas, which rules Gaza.

In talks with Abbas in the occupied West Bank, Blinken cited “increased instability” on the ground, where hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in raids by the Israeli army or attacks by Jewish settlers in recent months.

As part of efforts to stabilize the territory, Blinken called on Israel to hand over the revenues owed to the Palestinians in full.

Blinken “underlined the United States’ position that all Palestinian tax revenue collected by Israel should be consistently transferred to the Palestinian Authority in accordance with previous agreements,” Miller said.

Israel has for years withheld some of the funds, for issues such as payments to Palestinian prisoners and more recently for the Gaza war.

Global concern has grown over the spiraling humanitarian crisis, and Blinken — while voicing continued US political and military support for top regional ally Israel — called for measures to reduce the mounting civilian death toll.

The dire shortages caused by the Israeli siege mean “the daily toll on civilians in Gaza, especially children, is very high,” Blinken said Tuesday at a joint news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Amidst the latest round of US crisis diplomacy, the war in Gaza rages unabated. The Israeli military said it killed dozens of “terrorists” and hit another 150 targets in central Gaza in Maghazi and southern Khan Yunis.

Israeli troops claimed to have found 15 tunnel shafts, as well as rocket launchers, missiles, drones and explosives in Al-Maghazi and destroyed machinery to produce the rockets fired into Israel.

Gaza’s health ministry confirmed on Wednesday that at least 23,357 people have been killed in Israel’s relentless military campaign in more than three months of war between the Palestinian resistance group Hamas and Israel.

The toll includes 147 deaths in the past 24 hours, according to a ministry statement, while 59,410 people have been injured across the Palestinian territory since the war broke out on October 7, 2023.

Thousands of Gazans are missing as Israel’s relentless shelling has reduced much of the city to rubble

The war began when Hamas launched its unprecedented attack on October 7, which resulted in an estimated 1,140 deaths in Israel. The militants also took about 250 hostages, of whom Israel says 132 remain in Gaza, including at least 25 believed to have been killed.

The Israeli military says 186 of its soldiers have been killed inside Gaza.

Reading Pro-Gaza protesters blocked a bridge outside the British Parliament

The United Nations estimates that 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced within the besieged territory that had already endured years of blockade and poverty before the war.

One of them, Hassan Kaskin, 55, told AFP: “We lost our money, our homes, our jobs. We are also losing our young people.

“We have sacrificed our children for our country.”

Blinken’s fourth visit to ME

Blinken is on his fourth tour of the Middle East since the war broke out, with previous stops in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Washington has presented a post-war scenario in which a reformed Palestinian Authority rules Gaza as well as towns and cities in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

Blinken argued Tuesday that “Israel must partner with Palestinian leaders who are willing to lead their people to live side by side peacefully with Israel as neighbors.”

Amid rising violence in the West Bank, Blinken also said that “extremist settler violence going on with impunity, settlement expansion, demolitions, evictions make it harder, not easier, for Israel to achieve lasting peace and security.”

He added that “the Palestinian Authority also has a responsibility to reform itself, to improve its governance.”

Netanyahu, who leads what is widely regarded as the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, has shown no interest in rekindling negotiations for a Palestinian state.

A post-war plan outlined by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant calls for local “political committees” to govern Gaza after Israel dismantles Hamas.

Blinken declined to say whether Netanyahu’s views had shifted in their discussions.

Hamas, a resistance movement, seized sole control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, ousting Abbas’s Fatah party, with which it had shared power.

The United States and the European Union blacklist Hamas as a “terrorist” organization.

Qatar-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said last week he was “open to the idea” of a single Palestinian administration in Gaza and the West Bank.

Blinken also called for “more food, more water, more medicine” for Gaza, where only limited supplies of humanitarian aid have arrived from Egypt.

Desperate Gazans on Tuesday climbed into a truck carrying flour and canned goods and threw the food into the crowd below, according to AFP footage.

Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Tuesday that Israel is “ready and willing to facilitate as much humanitarian aid as the world will provide.”

Since the war in Gaza began, fears have grown of an escalation of the conflict between Israel and armed groups backed by Iran, particularly Lebanon’s Hezbollah, but also groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Defense Secretary Gallant told Blinken on Tuesday that stepping up pressure on Iran is “critical” and could prevent a regional escalation.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have carried out numerous attacks on passing container ships in the Red Sea, and the United States has set up a multinational naval group to protect the vital sea lane.

On Tuesday, the insurgents launched a complex attack, the US Central Command said, adding that US and British forces shot down 18 drones and three missiles, with no casualties or damage reported.

Blinken will make a surprise visit Wednesday to Bahrain, home of the US Fifth Fleet, a State Department official said, for talks with King Hamad on preventing a regional escalation of the war.