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June 11, 2024 – 00:08
(Keystone-ATS) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on Monday, during a new tour to defend a ceasefire plan in the Gaza Strip after more than eight months of war with Hamas.
This eighth regional tour by the Secretary of State since the start of the war in the Palestinian territory aims to advance a truce proposal announced on May 31 by American President Joe Biden.
While Hamas has not officially reacted to this proposal, the United States clearly places the primary responsibility for accepting it on the Islamist movement.
But if Joe Biden described the plan as coming from Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu says he wants to continue the war until the destruction of Hamas and the political divisions in his country could complicate American efforts.
Meeting with Netanyahu
After a stop in Cairo and a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, the head of American diplomacy met Benjamin Netanyahu for approximately two hours in Jerusalem.
Mr. Blinken stressed that “the proposal on the table would pave the way for calm along Israel’s northern border” with Lebanon and “further integration” of Israel “with countries in the region,” according to the State Department.
In New York, the UN Security Council is due to vote on Monday on a draft American resolution calling on Israel and Hamas to implement “without delay and without conditions” the plan announced by Joe Biden.
In Cairo, Mr. Blinken called on countries in the region to “put pressure on Hamas” to accept a ceasefire.
“I firmly believe that the overwhelming majority” of Israelis and Palestinians “want to believe in a future” in which the two peoples “live in peace and security,” he added.
“Need a deal”
At a time when dissension is growing within the coalition in power in Israel, the release of four hostages has reinforced Mr. Netanyahu in his military strategy against Hamas, author of a bloody attack on Israeli soil on October 7.
But the Prime Minister also suffered a political setback with the resignation on Sunday of the war cabinet of centrist Minister Benny Gantz, who demands the adoption of a post-war “action plan” and whose priority is to obtain the release of the hostages.
Mr. Netanyahu, for his part, maintains his objective of eliminating Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007 and considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
On Saturday, an Israeli special forces operation enabled the release of four hostages, a woman and three men, in Nousseirat, in the center of the besieged territory.
The Hamas health ministry said 274 people were killed and 698 injured, denouncing a “massacre” in a densely populated area. This assessment could not be independently verified.
The mother of Almog Meir Jan, one of the freed hostages, called on the government on Monday to reach a deal to free the other hostages. “The remaining hostages need an agreement to return home safely,” Orit Meir said, asking the Israeli government “to move forward with the agreement on the table.”
Multiple keystrokes
On Monday, an Israeli strike on a house in Gaza City, in the north of the territory, left five people dead, including an eight-month pregnant woman, according to Civil Defense.
Also in the north, a strike killed two people in a house in Choujaiya, according to al-Ahli hospital.
In the center, the air force carried out a strike on Deir al-Balah, while artillery fire was heard east of this city, causing deaths according to witnesses.
The army announced that it was engaged in an operation in the east of Deir al-Balah and the east of the nearby Bureij camp.
“Soldiers are conducting ground and underground operations against terrorist infrastructure and locations used to fire rockets toward Israel,” the army said.
In the south, witnesses reported fighting in central Rafah, a town where the army launched a ground offensive against Hamas on May 7.
This offensive pushed a million Palestinians to flee and led to the closure of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, crucial for the entry of international aid into the territory hit by a humanitarian disaster.
The UN World Food Program also suspended the delivery of aid from a US floating jetty on Monday in order to assess the security situation.
After months of efforts led in vain by the mediating countries, Qatar, Egypt and the United States, to achieve a ceasefire, the United States presented to the Security Council a text calling for support of the last leaf of route to date.
This plan, “accepted” by Israel according to the latest version of the American text, provides, in a first phase, a six-week ceasefire accompanied by an Israeli withdrawal from densely populated areas of Gaza, the release of certain Palestinian hostages and prisoners held by Israel.
