U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken in Middle East to Push Gaza Ceasefire While Israeli Troops Advance
Editor
10 June 2024 20:23 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the Middle East on Monday hoping to deliver the ceasefire that President Joe Biden proposed last month, in an all-out push by Washington to secure an end to the Gaza war.
The top U.S. diplomat met Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo and was due to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense chief in Israel later in the day.
Ahead of his trip, Israel and Hamas both doubled down on hardline positions that have scuppered all previous attempts to end the fighting, while Israel has pressed on with assaults in central and southern Gaza, among the bloodiest of the war.
Finally, you know, Netanyahu ran on the title Mr. Security. He promised peace through strength.00:5301:34
"We are committed to total victory," Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office, quoting remarks he made on Sunday to relatives of Israelis killed in Gaza.
"What is the main dispute? It is over Hamas' demand ... that we commit to stopping the war without achieving our goals of eliminating Hamas.... I am not prepared to do so."
Hamas, for its part, said Washington must push its ally Israel to halt the fighting.
"We call upon the U.S. administration to put pressure on the occupation to stop the war on Gaza, and the Hamas movement is ready to deal positively with any initiative that secures an end to the war," senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters ahead of Blinken's arrival.
The war has now entered its ninth month since Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people and took some 250 others hostage in a rampage through southern Israel. In response, Israel launched an assault on the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and reduced most of the enclave to wasteland.
Palestinian officials said 40 more bodies arrived in hospitals over the past 24 hours. Thousands more dead are believed buried under rubble.
