Blinken’s diplomatic step: Traveling to Egypt and Israel to push Ceasefire
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to visit Egypt and Israel on Monday at a sensitive time with the Biden administration trying to ramp up pressure on Hamas and Israel to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and to prevent the conflict from spilling over to Lebanon.
This is already Blinken’s eighth trip to the region, after the Hamas raid on Israel on October 7 (as well as other attacks that are the most severe throughout the decades-long conflict between the two parties). His schedule also involves Jordan and Qatar later in the week.
The planned schedule of the state secretary includes the meeting with the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo, as well as talks with the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s defence minister Yoav Gallant.
This visit comes a day after U. S. President Joe Biden’s on May 31, outlined a three-phase plan for a ceasefire in the Israel- Palestine conflict that would lead to a permanent ceasefire, the freeing of Israeli hostages and the Palestinian captives plus rebuilding Gaza.
The attack launched by Hamas initially led to the death of women, children and unarmed civilians primarily totaling 1,200 while taking close to 250 hostages as estimated by ISREAL. In return, Israel attacked the Gaza Strip and caused more than 37,000 Palestinian casualties and the destruction of the territory as declared by the Gaza Health Ministry.
On Saturday, the Israelis attacked a building in Gaza, where they liberated four hostages kidnapped by Hamas in October while 274 Palestinians died, stated Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
Blinken’s trip comes at a time of renewed political instability in the Israeli political arena where Israeli minister Benny Gantz declared his resignation from Netanyahu’s emergency government on Sunday, the only political centrist within Netanyahu’s otherwise far-right governing coalition during the attack on Gaza.
Gantz would not necessarily endanger the government even if his decision predicts more severe consequences: Netanyahu will have to rely on the hardline in the conditions of ongoing warfare and a possible deterioration of relations with the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.
Israel and Hezbollah are rather on the brink in the eighth and a half months of the conflict provoked by the Gaza war, since the intensity of clashes gradually increases, and both parties show certain readiness for an open war.
On his visit to the region, Blinken will stress the importance of achieving the cease-fire deal that, will include the release of all the hostages and, in light of the developments, will not allow conflict to progress further as described by the State Department spokesman – Matthew Miller. Blinken will emphasise that Hamas should agree with the ceasefire offer on the table to The British audience.
Indications for comprehensive cease-fire talks have emerged since Biden’s speech They escalated on Wednesday; CIA Director William Burns consultations with Qatari and Egyptian counterparts who mediate the conflict in Doha. Even though Biden many times has conveyed that ceasefires were soon to come within the previous several months, in reality only one weekly ceasefire has taken place which was in November.
Although, diplomacy is greatly interlinked with the ongoing bloodshed and political instability; the aim for Blinken, in his meeting with key leaders in this particular region, this week, will be to steer through these diplomatic rough and find sustainable ways of establishing sustainable peace for the region.
