On his trip to Qatar, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken assured that the US rejected a “long-term” Israeli occupation of Gaza, confirming that time was “of the essence” after more than ten months of war.
During his trip to the Middle East on Tuesday, August 20, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed that the US rejected a “long-term” Israeli occupation of Gaza and called on Hamas to accept the latest US proposal for a ceasefire in the region.
Triggered by an attack of unprecedented scale by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil on October 7, the war in Gaza knows no respite. If the mediating countries – the US, Qatar and Egypt – try to get Israel and Hamas to agree on a ceasefire, the two belligerents continue to accuse each other of blocking the deal.
“Time’s Running Out”
While making his ninth trip to the Middle East since October 7, the head of US diplomacy, whose country is Israel’s first ally, met in Doha with Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdelaziz al-Khoulaifi, without meeting the emir as originally planned. During their meeting, they stressed the need “for an easing of tensions in the region,” according to Qatar’s foreign ministry.
“Time is running out,” Antony Blinken said afterwards on the airport tarmac before his departure from Doha.
This statement marks the final stop on a tour that took the US secretary of state to Israel and then to Egypt. On Friday, Washington presented a compromise proposal for a ceasefire during talks in Doha between Israel and mediators, and further discussions are expected in Egypt this week.
Antony Blinken said Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “accepted” the plan and called on Hamas to “do the same.” He repeated this request on Tuesday.
Difficult negotiations
Hamas rejected the US proposal, accusing the US of including “new conditions” from Israel, including the maintenance of its troops on the Gaza border with Egypt and “a right of veto” over Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and which likely to be exchanged for hostages.
The Palestinian movement is demanding the implementation of a plan announced on May 31 by US President Joe Biden that provides for a six-week ceasefire accompanied by an Israeli withdrawal from densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of hostages, and then in another phase, a total Israeli withdrawal from the besieged area.
In response, the US president criticized Hamas “for going backwards”, while the movement said it was “eager to reach an agreement”.
A senior US official who accompanied Antony Blinken on his tour this Tuesday criticized statements attributed to Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu about Israel’s continued control of the Gaza-Egypt border, saying that amid negotiations they were “not constructive”.
On this topic, Antony Blinken stated that the United States rejected a “long-term” Israeli occupation of Gaza. The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly said he wants to continue the war until the destruction of Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and considered a terrorist by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
Four died in Lebanon
On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza into neighboring southern Israel in an attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data. Out of 251 people kidnapped that day, 105 are still being held in Gaza, of which 34 were declared dead by the army.
The Israeli offensive, carried out in retaliation, left at least 40,173 dead, according to the Hamas government’s health ministry, which did not specify the number of civilians and fighters killed. According to the UN, most of the dead are women and minors. On Tuesday, the army announced that it had found the bodies of six Israeli hostages during an operation in a tunnel in Khan Younes (south). Five of them had been declared dead in recent months, the sixth was announced on Tuesday.
In the devastated Gaza Strip, where almost all of the 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced, Israeli bombardment continues. In addition to the attack on the school, six Palestinians were killed in Rafah (south), according to medical sources. Another medical source reported four deaths in Israeli fire east of Khan Younes. Seven people were also killed in an Israeli bombardment in Deir al-Balah (center), the civil defense said.
For the US, a cease-fire in Gaza must also help to avoid a possible attack on Israel by Iran and its allies – Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas and the Yemeni Houthi rebels. The latter threatened to retaliate for the assassination, attributed to Israel, of Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, and that of Hezbollah military leader Fouad Chokr, killed the day before in an Israeli attack near Beirut.
Lebanon’s health ministry said four people were killed Tuesday in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah said it fired rockets and drones at Israeli positions on their shared border. The day after the start of the war in Gaza, the Lebanese Islamist movement opened a front in support of the Palestinians against Israel.