Blinken, Sisi talk to shore up truce deal

CAIRO: US secretary of state Antony Blinken met with President Abdel Fattah al-sisi in Cairo on Wednesday on a West Asia tour to shore up an Egypt-brokered truce between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.

The US top diplomat already met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, to throw Washington’s support behind the Friday truce that ended 11 days of heavy Israeli bombing of Gaza and rocket fire from the enclave into Israel.

After talks with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas at his headquarters in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Blinken vowed to rebuild US relations with the Palestinians by reopening a consulate in Jerusalem, as well as giving millions in aid for the war-battered Gaza Strip.

Blinken evoked the “possibility of resuming the effort to achieve a two-state solution, which we continue to believe is the only way to truly assure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state, and of course to give the Palestinians the state they’re entitled to”.

After meeting earlier on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he reiterated support for Israel’s right to defend itself against rocket attacks by Gaza’s Hamas rulers, adding that they must not benefit from the reconstruction aid.

On Wednesday, he met with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin who Blinken thanked for his “longstanding efforts to promote coexistence, tolerance, and peace” - before he headed to Cairo. Blinken was later due later to fly on to Jordan, where half of the 10 million-strong population is of Palestinian origin, for talks with King Abdullah II.

UN asked to up scrutiny of Israel’s rights record

Member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation are calling on the UN Human Rights Council to set up a permanent commission to report on human rights violations in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. The move comes in the wake of the latest surge in violence in the Israelpalestinians conflict. If passed, it would mark an unprecedented level of scrutiny authorised by the UN’S top human rights body.

The proposal, formally presented late on Tuesday, comes ahead of a special session of the Geneva-based council on Thursday to address “the grave human rights situation” in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The meeting was sought by Pakistan, as the OIC’S coordinator.

A vote on the draft resolution was likely at the end of Thursday’s session.