ISRAEL TO ALLOW UN ACCESS TO GAZA, SAYS BLINKEN
▶ Move could ‘pave way for displaced Palestinians to return safely to homes’
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last night that Israel had agreed to a plan that will allow the UN to access northern Gaza to assess infrastructure damage.
He was speaking after meetings in Israel with top Israeli government figures.
“We agreed today on a plan for the UN to carry out an assessment mission,” Mr Blinken said.
“It will determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return safely to homes in the north.”
But Washington’s top diplomat said it will take time before such a mission will be possible.
He also said that the daily toll of war on civilians in Gaza is “far too high”.
This came as tensions rose on the Lebanese border, with drone strikes.
In Lebanon, Iran-backed Hezbollah said it launched a drone attack on an Israeli “command centre” in the northern city of Safad yesterday.
Israel’s military said a “hostile aircraft” had come down on a northern base, but “no injuries or damage were reported” at the facility, 15km south of the border with Lebanon.
Meanwhile, shortly before the funeral of Hezbollah field commander Wissam Tawil, in his hometown of Khirbet Salam, southern Lebanon, a drone targeted a vehicle near the cemetery, killing at least one person.
Tawil, the most senior Hamas member to be killed since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, was assassinated on Monday in a strike on his car.
That followed the assassination of deputy Hamas leader Saleh Al Arouri last week in a Beirut suburb.
Hezbollah deputy secretary general Naim Qassem said yesterday that Israel’s targeted killings “cannot lead to a phase of retreat but rather to a push forward for the resistance”.
Also yesterday, Mr Blinken met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, cabinet ministers and opposition leader Yair Lapid. It was Mr Blinken’s fourth visit to Israel since the war began, and the last leg of a tour that included stops in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
After talks with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Mr Blinken spoke of “the incredibly challenging times for Israel” and relentless efforts to “bring home” hostages held in Gaza.
Mr Blinken also voiced hopes that, after the war, regional integration efforts can resume.
“I think there actually are real opportunities there but we have to get through this very challenging moment and ensure that October 7 can never happen again, and work to build a much different and much better future,” Mr Blinken said, after meeting Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz.
Meanwhile at the UN General Assembly last night, as it debated last month’s US veto of a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, Riyad Mansour, Palestinian ambassador to the UN, said Israel “has spared no effort to ridicule its closest ally [the US], the one it calls on for military, political and financial support and ignores when it does not like what it is asking for”.
On October 7, Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people in Israel and abducted 240. Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed more than 23,000 people, the Gazan Health Ministry said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting Israel, where he is expected to put pressure on officials to de-escalate tensions in Gaza and southern Lebanon, as fears mount in Washington that the Middle East is on the brink of a regional war.
Mr Blinken is expected to focus discussions on Israeli plans for a third, lower-intensity military phase in the war against Hamas, Palestinian and Arab officials told
The National.
The war in Gaza has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians so far. It began on October 7 with the worst attack in Israel’s history, which claimed about 1,200 lives.
Fallout is spreading to Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, where armed groups connected to Iran, Israel’s arch rival, operate.
Mr Blinken is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his cabinet ministers and opposition leader Yair Lapid. It is Mr Blinken’s fourth visit to Israel since the war began.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog thanked Mr Blinken at the beginning of his trip for supporting Israel with “humanity and with the values of the free world”.
Mr Blinken also held a meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz about the need to build closer ties with Arab states and the “real opportunities” such efforts would yield.
“But we have to get through this very challenging moment and ensure that October 7 can never happen again and work to build a much different and much better future,” Mr
Blinken said. Chuck Freilich, former Israeli deputy national security adviser, described the transition to lower-intensity fighting in Gaza as a sign that “Israel is moving towards the American position”, although the US wanted that to have happened sooner.
A steady stream of senior US officials has travelled to Israel in the past four months to offer support and press the government to introduce a longer-term strategy that brings peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Mr Freilich expected Mr Blinken to press the Israelis on an endgame in Gaza.
“I know that work has been done on this in the [Israeli] government, but the cabinet hasn’t made a decision yet,” he said.
“Netanyahu has political
difficulties in moving to phase three [of the Gaza War] because the right wing in his coalition doesn’t want to acknowledge the transition, but he seems to be managing that”.
After arriving in Israel on Monday, Mr Blinken posted on X that the US had a “vision for a regional approach that delivers lasting security for Israel and a state for the Palestinian people”.
President Joe Biden’s administration has, nonetheless, been under intense criticism at home and abroad for its continued support and arming of Israel despite the death toll and humanitarian disaster the situation is inflicting on Gaza’s population.
US Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to Mr Herzog on Monday to reaffirm “steadfast support” for Israel, discuss joint efforts to stop the war spreading and the need to reduce the intensity of fighting in Gaza.
Despite reports that rifts are growing between Israel and the US, Mr Freilich said there is still “broad strategic agreement on what this war is about: Hamas cannot be tolerated and should be destroyed”.
“Cutting off military aid [to Israel] is not on the cards,” he said. “Could there be a slowdown of deliveries? That would still be a very extreme step.
“The US has a variety of ways of expressing its displeasure. There could also be another [UN] Security Council resolution that it doesn’t block if it’s not viewed as a particularly bad one. The US always finds ways of conveying messages to Israel without leaping to what I would call the nuclear option of cutting off military aid.”
In the US, a small group of protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza interrupted what had been billed as a major campaign speech by Mr Biden.
His address at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, where in 2015 nine people were killed in a racist shooting, was aimed at gathering support from the black community.
“If you really care about the lives lost here, you should honour the lives lost and call for a ceasefire in Palestine,” yelled a woman, while several others shouted, “ceasefire now”.
Before arriving in Israel, Mr Blinken met President Sheikh
Former Israeli deputy national security adviser Chuck Freilich expects Washington to continue to coax the Israelis
Mohamed in Abu Dhabi on Monday. Sheikh Mohamed emphasised the need to work towards a ceasefire and ensure humanitarian relief is delivered to the residents of Gaza while preventing their displacement, state news agency Wam reported.
Last week, in keeping with its gravitation towards special operations and eliminating senior figures, Israel killed
Saleh Al Arouri of Hamas with a missile strike in Beirut, an escalation between Israel and Lebanon-based militant group and Hamas ally Hezbollah.
Another Israeli strike on southern Lebanon on Monday killed a senior commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force.