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Top US Diplomat Heads Back to Middle East Amid Regional Escalation Fears
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to the media prior to departure from Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai, on Dec. 1, 2023. Photo: SAUL LOEB/Pool via REUTERS
US top diplomat Antony Blinken will return to the Middle East on Thursday, continuing the Biden administration’s intense diplomacy over Israel‘s three-month long conflict with Hamas, as fears of a broader regional conflagration grow.
The US secretary of state’s weeklong trip — his fourth to the region since Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attacks on southern Israel sparked a massive Israeli air and ground assault — will include visits to Israel and the West Bank, as well as Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. He also will make stops in Turkey and Greece.
Blinken will repeat his calls to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza while attempting to make progress on the sensitive subject of how the Gaza Strip could be managed after the war, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.
Blinken travels with concerns of regional escalation in the spotlight. After a drone strike on Tuesday killed Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in the Lebanese capital Beirut, the leader of Iran-backed Hezbollah, which has exchanged fire with Israel from southern Lebanon, said his powerful Shi’ite terror group “cannot be silent.”
The US military on Thursday carried out a retaliatory strike in Baghdad that killed a leader of a separate Iran-backed militia it blames for recent attacks on US personnel, a US official told Reuters.
The conflict has also crept into vital Red Sea shipping lanes. The Iran-aligned Houthis, who control much of Yemen, have launched drones and missiles at more than 20 ships since Nov. 19.
“It is in no one’s interest, not Israel‘s, not the region’s, not the world’s, for this conflict to spread beyond Gaza,” Miller said, adding that Blinken would discuss unspecified steps the parties can take to avoid escalation.
In response to Hamas’ cross-border assault in which Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people and abducted some 240, Israel unleashed a ground and air blitz in Gaza to incapacitate the terror group, which rules the neighboring Palestinian enclave.
Visits to NATO allies Turkey and Greece are also on Blinken’s agenda. Turkey is expected to soon approve Sweden’s NATO membership, but its lengthy deliberation has frustrated Turkey’s Western allies, including US lawmakers who are holding up the sale of F-16 fighter jets until Ankara signs off on the addition to the alliance.
FUTURE OF GAZA
Blinken is expected to revive US appeals to Israeli leaders to reduce the impact of its operation in Gaza on civilians. As on previous trips, Blinken will also try to begin discussions on how Gaza will be run if and when Israel achieves its goal of eradicating Hamas, which has run the strip since 2007.
“We will discuss the need for combined governance that unites … the West Bank and Gaza under Palestinian leadership, but what the specifics look like I will keep for private diplomatic conversations,” Miller said.
Israel’s Arab neighbors have pushed back, insisting that securing a ceasefire should be the priority.
US officials have backed Israel in its rejection of genocide charges made at the International Criminal Court by South Africa, while pressing Israel to do more to protect civilians.
Washington this week criticized two Israeli ministers for advocating resettling Palestinians outside Gaza, saying Israel had assured US officials the statements do not reflect policy.
Miller acknowledged the challenges facing Blinken. “We don’t expect every conversation on this trip to be easy,” he said.
The post Top US Diplomat Heads Back to Middle East Amid Regional Escalation Fears first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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