Blinken and Abbas discuss efforts to restore calm
US secretary of state visits the West Bank
Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unannounced visit Sunday to the Israeli-occupied West Bank to meet with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the internationally backed Palestinian Authority, and other Palestinian leaders.
The visit by the top American diplomat, to the West Bank city of Ramallah, followed his talks with Israeli and Arab leaders in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Amman, Jordan, which have focused on preventing Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip from spreading and on persuading the Israeli government to do more to limit civilian casualties in the enclave.
Blinken spoke to Abbas about his efforts to get Israeli leaders to “minimize civilian harm” in Gaza and told him that the Biden administration was working on getting more humanitarian assistance into the enclave, according to a senior State Department official.
The two men also discussed efforts to restore calm in the West Bank — where strikes by the Israeli military and deadly attacks by armed Israeli settlers have surged since the Oct. 7 assault — and stop extremist violence against Palestinians, according to an earlier statement from the State Department.
Millions of Palestinians live under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, and Blinken has described the extremist violence against them as “an acute concern” for the United States.
Blinken and Abbas last held talks three weeks ago in Amman, Jordan, days after Hamas extremists from Gaza launched a surprise attack that killed about 1,400 people in Israel, mostly civilians.
There are indications that if Hamas is defeated, the Palestinian Authority could have a role in Gaza. After the meeting Sunday, a senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Blinken had made it clear that the United States believes the Palestinian Authority should play a central role in what comes next in Gaza.
Abbas is the leader of the Palestinian Authority, which Hamas, a rival, ousted from Gaza in a violent coup in 2007 after winning elections the previous year. Abbas has long advocated the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and Palestinian security forces under his direction have worked closely with Israel to arrest Palestinian militants.
Still, he has not publicly condemned Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks, largely out of fear of inflaming sentiment among Palestinians, with whom he is deeply unpopular. He has called more generally for a cease-fire and protections for Palestinian civilians, including in the West Bank.
Abbas echoed those messages Sunday in his meetings with Blinken, according to Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency. It said Abbas had called for “an immediate halt” to the war in Gaza and an end to the attacks in the West Bank, which he described as “no less horrific.”
Later Sunday, Blinken made an unannounced visit to Baghdad, showing support for Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and sending a message to Iran about the Biden administration’s commitment to defending its personnel in the region.
Regional tensions have been rising since Israel launched its military operation.
One of the Biden administration’s top priorities has been to deter Iran and its proxies — particularly Hezbollah, the armed group that controls areas of Lebanon along Israel’s northern border — from entering the conflict.
“President Biden said on day one to anyone thinking of opening a second front, taking advantage of the situation, don’t,” Blinken said at a news conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Friday. “And we’ve backed up those words not only with work that we’ve done with many partners in the region to reinforce that message, but with practical deeds.”
He pointed to the deployment of two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region.
In addition to Blinken’s diplomatic outreach, US officials on Sunday revealed that CIA Director William Burns arrived in Israel for discussions with leaders and intelligence officials, the first stop in a multicountry trip in the region.
The visit comes as the United States is trying to prod Israel to pursue a more targeted approach to attacking Hamas, allow pauses in the fighting for aid to enter the Gaza Strip, and do more to avoid civilian casualties.
The United States is also looking to expand its intelligence sharing with Israel, providing information that could be useful about hostage locations or any follow-on attacks by Hamas.