RSS
Blinken in Israel in Last Big Ceasefire Push Before US Election
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is welcomed by US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Deputy Director General for North America Lior Hayat, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard/Pool
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday in the first big US push for a Middle East ceasefire since Israel killed the leader of Hamas last week — and the last attempt before a presidential election that could upend US policy.
Blinken began his meetings in Israel as Hezbollah launched rockets into Tel Aviv and Haifa and Israeli air strikes pummeled parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Repeated diplomatic efforts have failed to bring an end to both the year-long war in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian enclave of Gaza and to its spillover conflict between Israel and the Lebanese Iran-backed armed terrorist group Hezbollah.
Blinken, on his 11th trip to the region since the Gaza war erupted, faces a daunting mission.
Hezbollah said on Tuesday there would be no negotiations while fighting continues and it claimed responsibility for a drone attack on Netanyahu’s holiday home on Saturday.
Washington hopes the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar — Israel‘s most wanted man, blamed for triggering the year of warfare by planning the deadly attack on Oct. 7 last year on Israeli territory — will provide a new opportunity for peace.
But Israel has so far shown no sign of relenting in its military campaigns even after assassinating several leaders of Iran’s allies Hamas and Hezbollah, which lost its powerful leader Hassan Nasrallah in a Sept. 27 airstrike.
In Gaza on Tuesday, the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA called for a temporary truce to allow civilians to leave areas in the north of the enclave where Israeli forces were hunting down Hamas terrorists.
SIRENS IN TEL AVIV
Blinken was meeting Netanyahu and other officials at the start of a week-long trip that will also take him to Jordan and Qatar. US officials say he is exploring plans for rebuilding and governing Gaza after the war, key to reaching a ceasefire.
Iran and its terrorist allies — Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, armed groups in Iraq, and Hamas in Gaza — have said that their “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli and US interests will emerge victorious.
The Houthis said on Tuesday they had targeted an Israeli military base in Tel Aviv using ballistic missiles in solidarity with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Hours before Blinken landed, air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and other areas of central Israel after Hezbollah fired missiles at what it said were Israeli military targets near Haifa and Tel Aviv. The missiles were an apparent demonstration that Hezbollah’s capabilities have survived Israel‘s biggest operation in decades of hostilities.
The conflict has spread to Lebanon over the past month, with Israel launching a ground campaign and intensified air assaults against Hezbollah, which had been firing across the frontier for a year in solidarity with the Palestinians.
During a night of heavy strikes on south Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut, Israel struck the area near Beirut’s Rafik Hariri hospital, Lebanon’s main state medical facility. Lebanese authorities said 13 people were killed.
The Israeli military said the hospital itself had not been targeted and was not affected. Director Jihad Saadeh said the hospital was damaged because of an Israeli attack near it.
Hamas, which is still holding scores of hostages in Gaza seized in its Oct. 7, 2023 raid on Israel, refuses to release them without an Israeli pledge to end the war.
Israel says it will not halt fighting until the Islamist terrorist group is completely destroyed in the enclave, which has been largely reduced to ruins during Israel’s military campaign.
Washington and other allies hope Israel‘s killing of Sinwar in a firefight last week could provide a breakthrough by making it easier for Netanyahu’s government to assert that its objectives have been achieved in Gaza.
But diplomats and other sources say Israel is pressing to lock in a strong position before a new US administration takes over following the Nov. 5 election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump.
ISRAELI RETALIATION AGAINST IRAN
State Department officials said Blinken intended to raise the issue of what happens in Gaza when the war ends, focusing on security, governance, and reconstruction. Washington has long said it ideally wants Gaza reunited with the West Bank under a government run by the Palestinian Authority, which now exercises limited self-rule.
Blinken will also discuss Israel‘s anticipated retaliation for a ballistic missile attack launched by Iran on Oct. 1, a senior State Department official said.
Allies are worried that Israel‘s response could disrupt oil markets and ignite a full-blown war between the arch-enemies.
The Gaza war began after Hamas-led fighters attacked Israeli communities on Oct. 7 last year, killing around 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages.
The post Blinken in Israel in Last Big Ceasefire Push Before US Election first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
The post Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
The post Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
The post Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.