Blinken heads to Israel to press for Gaza truce
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Israel Friday to press for a truce in Gaza, ahead of a key UN Security Council vote on a US draft resolution calling for an “immediate” ceasefire.
Israel’s main backer the United States announced it would submit for a vote on Friday a draft to the Security Council on the need for an “immediate ceasefire as part of a hostage deal,” after repeatedly using its veto power to block other similarly worded resolutions.
After talks in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Blinken flew to Israel on Friday, his sixth trip to the region since the war began with Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7.
Fighting in Gaza this week has centered around Al-Shifa hospital, the besieged territory’s largest, with Israel also vowing to launch a new ground assault in overcrowded Rafah in the south.
Israel said its spy chief would also head back to Qatar on Friday for more truce talks with US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators who are trying to negotiate a sixweek pause.
The talks are focused on securing a truce agreement, hinged on the release of hostages held by Hamas militants in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody and the delivery of more aid to Gaza, where famine is threatening its 2.4 million people.
Blinken told reporters in Cairo on Thursday that “gaps are narrowing” and that the United States was “continuing to push for an agreement in Doha.”
“It’s difficult to get there, but I believe it is still possible,” Blinken said.
He warned that an Israeli ground offensive in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, where around 1.5 million people are hemmed in by the Egyptian border, would be “a mistake.”
“There is no place for the civilians amassed in Rafah to get out of harm’s way,” Blinken said.
“There is a better way to deal with the ongoing threat posed by Hamas.”
The United States will submit its draft resolution to the UN Security Council on Friday, a spokesman for the US representative to the world body said.
The US resolution “will unequivocally support ongoing diplomatic efforts aimed at securing an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as part of a hostage deal ... we will be bringing this Resolution for a vote on Friday morning,” Nate Evans, spokesman for US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said in a statement.
After blocking an Algerian draft resolution calling for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza at the end of February, US officials have been negotiating an alternative text focusing on support for a six-week truce in exchange for the release of hostages.
Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza has continued despite renewed diplomatic efforts, with the death toll in Gaza close to 32,000, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Israel’s military said it had killed more than 140 Hamas fighters and arrested more than 350 since the start of its operations in and around Al-Shifa hospital on Monday.
Meanwhile, the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, David Barnea, was to travel to Doha Friday to meet CIA chief William Burns, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel for further truce talks.
However, a Hamas official said Israel’s response to the group’s latest proposal had been “largely negative.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted a ground incursion is the only way to root out Hamas, despite warnings by Blinken, the European Union, which called on Thursday for an “immediate humanitarian pause” in Gaza, and others.
Tensions have also flared in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli troops and settlers have killed more than 440 Palestinians since the Gaza war began, according to Palestinian officials.