In Israel, Blinken set to push Netanyahu for sustained aid into Gaza

TEL AVIV – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on May 1, pushing to get more aid into Gaza, while urging Hamas to accept a deal that would halt fighting in the enclave and bring Israeli hostages home.

Following visits to Riyadh and Amman earlier this week, the United States’ top diplomat is now in Israel for the final stop of his wider Middle East tour.

It is his seventh visit to the region, which was plunged into conflict on Oct 7

when Hamas attacked Israel.

Illustrating the trip’s humanitarian focus, Mr Blinken is set to visit Ashdod port in southern Israel, which has recently started receiving aid for Gaza.

He will ask Israel’s government to take a set of specific steps to facilitate aid to Gaza, where nearly half the population is suffering catastrophic hunger.

He met Mr Netanyahu alone at his office ahead of a wider meeting that will include other senior Israeli officials and US diplomats.

“Even as we’re working with relentless determination to get the ceasefire that brings the hostages home, we also have to be focused on people in Gaza for suffering in this crossfire of Hamas’ making,” Mr Blinken said in remarks at the start of his meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv.

“Focus on getting them the assistance they need, the food, and medicine, the water or shelter is also very much on our minds.”

Among the steps that needed to be taken, Mr Blinken said on April 30, was to secure enough drivers and trucks within Gaza so aid distribution is done effectively. He also said a clear list of items needed to be identified, so there are no “arbitrary” denials of aid shipments.

Mr Blinken has urged Hamas to accept an “extraordinarily generous” truce deal proposed by Egyptian mediators, which would see 33 Israeli hostages released in exchange for a larger number of Palestinian prisoners and a halt to the fighting, with the possibility of further steps towards a comprehensive deal later.

A senior official for Hamas, which has yet to respond to the proposals, said the group was still studying the proposed deal, but he accused Mr Blinken of failing to respect both sides and said the real obstacle to an agreement was Israel.

“Blinken’s comments contradict reality,” Mr Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters. “Even the Israeli negotiating team admitted Netanyahu was the one who was hindering reaching an agreement.”

Mr Blinken’s trip to Israel comes amid growing speculation that Israel will soon launch a long-promised assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians displaced from their homes farther north are sheltering.

On April 30, defying US calls to ensure that no military operation took place without adequate steps to protect civilians, Mr Netanyahu declared Israel would go ahead with the Rafah assault regardless of any ceasefire deal.

While facing international calls to hold off on any Rafah offensive, he has faced intense pressure from the religious nationalist partners he depends on for the survival of his coalition government to press ahead.

Hamas killed 1,200 people and abducting 250 others in its Oct 7 assault on Israel, according to Israeli tallies.

In response, Israel has launched a relentless assault on Gaza, killing more than 34,000 Palestinians, the local health authorities say, in a bombardment that has reduced the enclave to a wasteland. More than one million people face famine after six months of war, the United Nations has said.

Mr Blinken’s check-in with Mr Netanyahu on aid will take place about a month after US President Joe Biden issued a stark warning to the Israeli Prime Minister, saying Washington’s policy could shift if Israel fails to take steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering and the safety of aid workers.

Mr Biden has threatened to condition support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza on it taking concrete steps to protect aid workers and civilians, seeking for the first time to leverage US aid to influence Israeli military behaviour.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on April 30 that there had been incremental progress towards averting “an entirely preventable, human-made famine” in the northern Gaza Strip, but called on Israel to do more.

The first shipments of aid directly from Jordan to northern Gaza’s newly opened Erez crossing will leave on May 7, goods are also arriving via Ashdod, and a new maritime corridor will be ready in about a week, Mr Blinken said. REUTERS