Blinken flies to Mid-East in push for Gaza truce

It will be the 11th trip to the Middle East by the top US diplomat since war broke out a year ago.

US Foreign Secretary Anthony Blinken. Picture: AFP

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken left for the Middle East Monday on a new push for an elusive Gaza ceasefire two weeks before US elections, seeing a new opportunity from Israel’s killing of Hamas’s leader.

It will be the 11th trip to the Middle East by the top US diplomat since war broke out a year ago, with Mr Blinken on his last visit to Israel in August warning it may have been the “last chance” for a US-led ceasefire plan.

That push did not succeed, and the conflict has escalated and expanded since, with Israel pounding Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and warning of a new strike directly on Iran, whose clerical leaders back both Hamas and Hezbollah.

US President Joe Biden, who personally laid out the ceasefire plan on May 31 that would also free hostages from Gaza, has seen new hope since Israel last week killed Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar.

Mr Biden, speaking to reporters on a visit to Germany, said he called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to congratulate him and tell him that Mr Blinken would head to the region.

“I told him we were really pleased with his actions and, further, that now is the time to move on – move on, move towards a ceasefire,” he said on Thursday.

The Gaza war was sparked by the unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel last year that resulted in the deaths of 1206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed 42,603 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the UN considers reliable.

Last month, Israel expanded its military operations to Lebanon, where at least 1470 people have been killed since then, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures.

Mr Blinken’s trip comes days after he and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Israel that the US could withhold some of its billions of dollars in military aid unless more humanitarian assist­ance was allowed into Gaza, where the UN says more than 1.8 million people face extreme hunger.

A breakthrough could be a major boost for US Vice-­President Kamala Harris, who is running in a razor-tight November 5 race for the White House against Donald Trump.

The war has been a political albatross for Mr Biden and Ms Harris, with Mr Netanyahu repeat­edly brushing aside US entreaties to do more to spare civilians.

Mr Trump also spoke to Mr Netanyahu about Sinwar’s killing, with the Republican saying the Israeli leader was proven right in ignoring Mr Biden’s pressure to dial back military operations.

He suggested he would give freer rein to Mr Netanyahu, telling reporters Mr Biden was “trying to hold him back and he probably should be doing the opposite”. Mr Trump staunchly backed Israel in his first term.

He has a complicated relationship with Mr Netanyahu but Republican voters, unlike Demo­crats, are overwhelmingly sup­port­­ive of Israel.

Mr Blinken flies first to Israel and then will tour other countries in the Middle East through to Friday. An official on the plane with him said Mr Blinken will visit Jordan on Wednesday and discuss humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip.

The State Department did not list his other stops but on previous trips he has visited several Arab countries, especially Qatar and Egypt, the key intermediaries in ceasefire negotiations.

Mr Blinken “will discuss the importance of bringing the war in Gaza to an end, securing the release of all hostages and alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people,” a State Department statement said.

It said Mr Blinken would also discuss post-war arrangements critical for a peace deal and seek a “diplomatic resolution” in Lebanon, where the US has stopped short of urging an immediate ceasefire.

Mr Blinken has also sought to coax Mr Netanyahu into compromise by dangling the prospect of normalisation with Saudi Arabia, which would be a historic game-changer in Israel’s quest for ­acceptance as the kingdom is the guardian of Islam’s two holiest sites.