WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to the Middle East to press the Israelis, Palestinians and regional players to build on last week’s Gaza ceasefire by laying the groundwork for an eventual resumption in long-stalled peace talks, reported international media on Monday. President Joe Biden announced Blinken would depart on Monday for a short visit to Israel, the West Bank, Jordan and Egypt for what will be the Biden administration’s highest-level in-person meetings on the crisis that erupted earlier this month. Blinken’s primary goal will be to shore up the ceasefire in the hope that it will hold, discuss an urgent infusion of humanitarian assistance into Gaza, stress the need for an end to intra-communal violence within Israeli cities and lay the preliminary groundwork for a return to peace talks, according to a senior State Department official.
In a statement, Biden said Blinken will work with regional partners to ensure “the coordinated international effort to ensure immediate assistance reaches Gaza.” While Blinken will meet with the leaders of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Jordan, he will not see anyone from the militant Hamas movement that runs Gaza.
Hamas is a US-designated “foreign terrorist organisation,” and contacts between American officials and the group are banned. That means the US must rely on third countries like Egypt and Qatar to pass messages to Hamas.
The Biden administration had been roundly criticised for its perceived hands-off initial response to the deadly violence, including from Democratic allies in Congress who were demanding it take a tougher line on Israel and its response to rocket attacks from Palestinian militant groups in Gaza.
The administration has defended its response by saying it engaged in intense, but quiet, high-level diplomacy to support a ceasefire, which was ultimately arranged last week after Egyptian mediation.
Blinken said Sunday that the behind-the-scenes effort led by Biden paid off, securing a truce after 11 days. “President Biden leading this effort made the judgment that we could be most effective in doing that. And ultimately, after this intensive effort across the government, we got to where everyone wanted to be, which was to end the violence,” he said in an interview with CNN.