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

[May 01, 2024]  By Humeyra Pamuk

TEL AVIV (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, 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 top U.S. diplomat is now in Israel for a series of meetings on the final stop of his Middle East tour.

It is Blinken's seventh visit to the region which was plunged into conflict on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel.

Illustrating the trip's humanitarian focus, 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 Netanyahu alone at his office ahead of a wider meeting that will include other senior Israeli officials and U.S. 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," Blinken said in remarks at the start of his meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv.

"Focused on getting them the assistance they need, the food, and medicine, the water or shelter is also very much on our minds," Blinken said.

Among the steps that needed to be taken, Blinken said on Tuesday, 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.

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 Blinken of failing to respect both sides and said the real obstacle to an agreement was Israel.

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

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv, Israel, May 1, 2024. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/Pool

ASSAULT ON RAFAH

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 one million Palestinians displaced from their homes further north are sheltering.

On Tuesday, defying U.S. calls to ensure that no military operation took place without adequate steps to protect civilians, 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, Netanyahu 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 abducted 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, 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.

Blinken's check-in with Netanyahu on aid takes place about a month after U.S. President Joe Biden issued a stark warning to Netanyahu, saying Washington's policy could shift if Israel fails to take steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday there had been incremental progress toward 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 were to start on Tuesday, goods were also arriving via the port of Ashdod, and a new maritime corridor would be ready in about a week, Blinken said.

(Writing by James Mackenzie; Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; Editing by Michael Perry and Ros Russell)

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