US supports ‘concrete actions’ for a Palestinian state, Blinken informs Abbas

On Wednesday, US Ambassador Antony Blinken informed Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas that Washington is in favor of “tangible steps” that would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

In subsequent discussions in the Red Sea port city of Aqaba, Abbas is scheduled to address a “push for an immediate ceasefire” alongside King Abdullah II of Jordan and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt.

Protesters brandished signs that said “Stop the genocide,” “Free Palestine,” and “Blinken out” as the US secretary of state arrived in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, under heavy security.

According to a statement from State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, Blinken restated Washington’s long-standing stance that a Palestinian state must coexist with Israel, “with both living in peace and security”.

After the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, Palestinian statehood was expected, but negotiations have remained dead for years.

The Palestinian leadership is still divided between Hamas, which controls Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority, which is led by Abbas. The Israeli government has demonstrated little interest in resuming talks.

Blinken brought up the “increased volatility” in the occupied West Bank during conversations with Abbas. In recent months, hundreds of Palestinians have been slain in Israeli military incursions and attacks by Jewish settlers.

Blinken urged Israel to give the Palestinians all of the money they are due as part of attempts to stabilize the region.

The incident “underscored the United States’ position that all Palestinian tax revenues collected by Israel should be consistently conveyed to the Palestinian Authority in accordance with prior agreements,” Miller stated.

Due to various difficulties, such as paying Palestinian detainees and, more recently, the Gaza conflict, Israel has been withholding a portion of the revenues for years.

Concern about the escalating humanitarian catastrophe has spread around the world, and Blinken has called for action to lower the rising number of civilian deaths while reaffirming US political and military support for Israel, the US’s main regional partner.

The “daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly children, is far too high,” Blinken stated on Tuesday at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The dire shortages forced on by an Israeli siege.

While US crisis diplomacy continued apace, the Gaza war continued unabated. The Israeli army claimed to have struck 150 targets in the southern Khan Yunis area of Gaza and the center Maghazi neighborhood of Gaza, killing dozens of “terrorists”.

In Al-Maghazi, Israeli forces allegedly discovered fifteen subterranean shafts, along with rocket launchers, missiles, drones, explosives, and wrecked equipment used to produce the rockets fired at Israel.

In more than three months of fighting between Israel and the Palestinian resistance organization Hamas, the Gaza Health Ministry revealed on Wednesday that at least 23,357 individuals had died as a result of Israel’s ruthless military operation.

A ministry release stated that since the conflict broke out on October 7, 2023, 59,410 individuals have been injured throughout the Palestinian territories, adding to the toll of 147 dead over the previous 24 hours.

With most of the city reduced to rubble by Israel’s unrelenting shelling, thousands of Gazans are reported missing.

When Hamas carried out its historic October 7 attack, which claimed over 1,140 lives in Israel, the conflict officially began.

Around 250 hostages were also taken by militants; according to Israel, 132 of them are still in Gaza, with at least 25 of them thought to have died.

186 Israeli troops, according to the Israeli army, have died inside Gaza. According to UN estimates, 1.9 million Gazans have been forced to flee their home after years of siege and destitution prior to the conflict.

Hassan Kaskin, 55, one of them, said to AFP: “We have lost our jobs, our houses, and our money.” Additionally, we are losing our youth.

“We’ve sacrificed our children for our homeland.”

Since the start of the conflict, Blinken has made four trips throughout the Middle East, stopping in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Washington has proposed a post-conflict scenario in which Gaza and the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, are governed by a revised Palestinian Authority.

Blinken said on Tuesday that “Israel must be a partner to Palestinian leaders who are willing to lead their people in living side by side in peace with Israel as neighbours” .

Blinken said that “extremist settler violence carried out with impunity, settlement expansion, demolitions, and evictions all make it harder, not easier, for Israel to achieve lasting peace and security” in the midst of a resurgence of violence in the West Bank.

He stated that “the Palestinian Authority also has a responsibility to reform itself, to improve its governance” .

There is no sign that Netanyahu, the head of what is regarded as the most right-wing government in Israeli history, is interested in resuming talks to create a Palestinian state.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s post-war plan calls for local “civil committees” to rule Gaza once Israel has destroyed Hamas.

Blinken refrained from stating if their conversations had changed Netanyahu’s opinions.

In 2007, the resistance movement Hamas overthrew Abbas’s Fatah party, which it had shared power with, to take complete control of the Gaza Strip.

Hamas has been designated as a “terrorist” organization by the US and the EU.

Chief of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, located in Qatar, stated last week that he was “open to the idea” of a unified Palestinian government overseeing both Gaza and the West Bank.

In addition, Blinken demanded “more food, more water, more medicine” for Gaza, as little humanitarian aid has been sent there from Egypt.

According to AFP film, desperate Gazans on Tuesday clambered atop a truck that was carrying canned goods and flour and threw the food to the people below.

Israel is “ready and willing to facilitate as much humanitarian aid as the world will give,” according to Army Spokesman Daniel Hagari on Tuesday.

Fears of an intensifying conflict between Israel and armed groups backed by Iran, particularly Hezbollah in Lebanon but also forces in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, have intensified since the commencement of the Gaza war.

On Tuesday, Blinken was informed by Defense Minister Gallant that mounting pressure on Iran was “critical” and may stop a regional escalation.

In response to repeated attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on passing container ships in the Red Sea, the US established a multinational naval task force to guard the crucial shipping channel.

According to US Central Command, the rebels “launched a complex” offensive on Tuesday. US and British forces also fired down three missiles and eighteen drones, but no injuries or damage were recorded.

According to a State Department official, Blinken will pay an unexpected visit to Bahrain on Wednesday, the home base of the US Fifth Fleet, to discuss ways to stop a regional escalation of hostilities with King Hamad.