Blinken meets with Abbas over possible post-war role in Gaza
Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Wednesday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, seeking administrative reforms aimed at allowing his Palestinian Authority to play a key role in governing the Gaza Strip when the war is over.
Blinken’s convoy rolled into Ramallah, the de facto capital of the West Bank, from Tel Aviv after a day of talks with Israeli leaders who have shown little interest in heeding the global outcry for a two-state solution.
Abbas stressed the need for a political solution starting with a State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and gaining full U.N. membership by a decision of the Security Council, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. Abbas also lobbied for an international peace conference to end the Israeli occupation and for Blinken to pressure Israel to release frozen funds needed to pay government salaries and other bills.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls for a Palestinian-led government in Gaza and says the war won’t end until Hamas has been crushed. Another problem: Many Palestinians view the authority, which administers the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as a corrupt puppet of Israel.
The State Department released a statement saying Blinken had a “productive discussion with President Abbas about administrative reforms, which, if implemented, would benefit the Palestinian people.”
Blinken’s next stop was Bahrain, home base of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, for talks with King Hamad on efforts to prevent the war from spreading across the Middle East.
Talks aimed at freeing hostages reportedly revived
Meanwhile, an Israeli delegation arrived in Cairo for a new round of talks with Egypt on a possible swap of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian security prisoners in Israel, the Times of Israel reported, citing an Egyptian official. And Israeli Channel 13 reports a Qatari proposal that would go further by exiling Hamas leaders, freeing the hostages in waves and withdrawing Israeli troops from Gaza. Israel’s security cabinet could take up the proposal within hours, Channel 13 reported.
The reports come as Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Abbas gathered in Aqaba, Jordan, for a summit on the events unfolding in Gaza. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry says more than 23,000 Palestinians have died since Oct. 7, the day a Hamas-led rampage into Israel killed more than 1,200 Israelis.
Hamas and other militant groups are believed to hold more than 130 hostages, including civilians and Israeli soldiers, taken back to Gaza that day. More than 100 hostages were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November.
Friendly fire sparked explosion that killed 6 Israeli soldiers
The Israeli military is now focusing major operations on the southern city of Khan Younis and built-up refugee camps in central Gaza that date to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.
An Israeli bombing near Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in central Gaza killed and wounded at least 40 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
An airstrike late Tuesday hit a fourstory house outside Rafah, a city in Gaza near the Egyptian border, killing at least 14 people and wounding at least 20 others, including women and children, Gaza health officials said.
And a preliminary investigation has determined that friendly fire caused the explosion in central Gaza that killed six Israeli soldiers on Monday.
International court hearing on genocide claim begins Thursday
South Africa will begin presenting its genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, on Thursday. South Africa says Israel’s military operations in Gaza are “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.”
Netanyahu has denied the claims, saying Hamas was attempting genocide on Israelis and that the Israeli military is behaving “as morally as possible.”
South Africa wants Israel ordered to “immediately suspend” its war in Gaza.