Blinken seeks Cairo’s backing for Gaza peace plan
US secretary of state Antony Blinken met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo on Thursday as he wound up a bout of shuttle diplomacy between Israel and its neighbours over the war in Gaza.
The visit came a day after Sisi met King Abdullah of Jordan and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the Red Sea port of Aqaba as Washington pushes for a path forward from the bloodshed in Gaza, even as the conflict threatens to spread further to Lebanon, Iraq and Red Sea shipping lanes.
Egypt and Jordan warned after the talks that Israel’s crackdown, which Gaza’s health ministry says killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, must not displace the strip’s 2.3-million people or end in an Israeli occupation. Israel and its US backers have insisted that this is not Israel’s plan.
The war began with an October 7 attack by Palestinian Hamas militants who killed 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostages.
Blinken, who has visited nine countries and the occupied West Bank in a week, brought a rough agreement to Israel that its Muslim-majority neighbours would help rehabilitate Gaza after the war and continue economic integration with Israel but only if Israel commits to eventually allowing the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
That state would incorporate Gaza and the West Bank, where Blinken met Abbas in the de facto Palestinian capital of Ramallah on Wednesday.
Washington wants the unpopular Palestinian Authority to undertake reforms and regain credibility to take charge of Gaza if and when Israel manages to eliminate Hamas, which has run the strip since 2007.
In Egypt, Blinken was also expected to discuss continuing talks with Hamas mediated by Egypt and Qatar.
Blinken told NBC in an interview on Tuesday that he is hopeful Hamas will engage in talks on the release of more hostages, after the breakdown of an earlier deal when fighting paused and more than 100 hostages were released.