AMMAN (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to press Israel’s Arab neighbors on Sunday to take a future role in running Gaza as he tries to quell regional tensions amid Israel’s offensive against Palestinian Hamas militants in the strip.
Blinken’s visit comes after a drone strike in Beirut killed a senior Hamas leader, Israel exchanged fire with Iran-backed militia Hezbollah across its northern border with Lebanon, and Washington tries to rally allies to deter attacks on Red Sea shipping by Houthi militants who control most of Yemen.
Blinken arrived in Jordan late on Saturday and met King Abdullah on Sunday before he was set to visit Qatar and end the day in the United Arab Emirates.
King Abdullah told Blinken that Washington had a major role to play in pressuring Israel into an immediate ceasefire, and warned of the “catastrophic repercussions” of the continuation of the war, which began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostage.
Israel’s subsequent air and ground assault had killed 22,722 Palestinians by Saturday, according to Palestinian health officials, and has turned much of Gaza to rubble and left its 2.3 million residents on the verge of starvation, according to aid workers.
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, who met Blinken earlier, would only discuss a future scenario that would bring the West Bank and Gaza together as the basis of a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, the foreign ministry said in a statement ahead of the talks on Sunday.
Israeli’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday proposed a multinational task force led by the United States in partnership with the European Union and regional partners could take responsibility for rehabilitating the enclave, with Israel maintaining its operational freedom of action in the strip.
Blinken will press hesitant Muslim nations to prepare to play a role in the reconstruction, governance and security of Gaza, a senior State Department official traveling with the top diplomat said.
The U.S. delegation aims to gather Arab states’ views on the future of Gaza before taking those positions to Israel, the official said, acknowledging there would be a significant gap between the different parties’ positions.
HUMANITARIAN CRISIS
In a camp for displaced people in Rafah, southern Gaza, some Palestinians called on Blinken to live up to U.S. calls for a two-state solution to the conflict.
“We hope that it is a visit for our benefit, for peace’s benefit and for the benefit of establishing a Palestinian state next to a Jewish state, in line with U.N. resolutions … and with what America has been calling for,” said Moussa al-Atawneh, a 76-year-old displaced man.
In Amman, Blinken visited a World Food Program (WFP) warehouse storing canned food bound for Gaza.
WFP acting country director for Palestine Laura Turner said ahead of meeting Blinken that he should push to cease the conflict and for Israel to open border crossings into northern Gaza.
“That’s where the population is that we haven’t been able to access for six weeks and we’re most concerned about,” Turner said, adding that aid sent north from southern Gaza was being taken en route by other Palestinians also in dire need of food.
Blinken said the U.S. was working to keep aid routes into the strip open and multiply them.
“We are intensely focused on the very difficult and indeed deteriorating food situation for men, women and children in Gaza, and it’s something we’re working on 24/7,” Blinken said.
Later in Doha, Blinken would also discuss efforts to free the more than 100 hostages still believed to be held by Hamas after an earlier agreement mediated by Qatar broke down.
(Reporting by Simon Lewis and Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman; Additional reporting by Fadi Shana and Mohammed Salem in Rafah; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
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