Blinken heads to Egypt to seek ‘enduring end’ to Gaza war
— U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due in Egypt on Tuesday as part of a Middle East crisis tour seeking a new truce and “an enduring end” to the Israel-Hamas war.
In Cairo, Blinken is scheduled to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the day after he held talks in Riyadh with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The trip, Blinken’s fifth to the region since the start of the nearly four-month-long war, will later include stops in Israel and Qatar.
Blinken’s diplomatic push has been given fresh urgency as Israeli forces press further south towards Rafah, a Palestinian city on the southern border with Egypt where more than half the population of the Gaza Strip has taken shelter.
Shellings and raids continued Tuesday morning as Israel presses to eradicate Hamas in the wake of the militants’ unprecedented Oct. 7 attack.
“No place is safe, no place at all, where shall we go?” Palestinian Mohamad Kozaat said after six members of his family, including his daughter, were injured in an Israeli strike on the border town.
At least 99 people, mostly women and children, were killed in Israeli strikes overnight Monday to Tuesday, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.
Blinken is hoping to shore up support for a truce deal hashed out in Paris in January, but not yet signed off on by either Hamas or Israel.
He spoke with the Saudi crown prince about “the urgent need to reduce regional tensions,” according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
A surge in attacks across the region by Iran-backed Hamas allies has triggered counterattacks by the United States and its partners.
They also discussed “regional coordination to achieve an enduring end to the crisis in Gaza.”
But Israel has vowed to press on with its retaliatory offensive, pushing as far into the Palestinian territory as needed to root out high-ranking Hamas officials.
Hostage negotiations
In recent weeks, the Israeli military has pounded Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s main city and the hometown of Hamas’s Gaza chief, Yahya Sinwar.
Gallant said Sinwar was “moving from hideout to hideout,” without elaborating on his presumed current location.
Israel accuses Sinwar of masterminding the Oct. 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants also seized around 250 hostages. Israel says 132 remain in Gaza — including 28 believed to have been killed, according to updated figures from the prime minister’s office.
Israel’s campaign has killed at least 27,478 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
The truce Blinken is hoping to seal proposes a six-week pause to fighting as Hamas frees hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and more aid enters Gaza, according to a Hamas source.