ARAB AND WORLD
Thu 24 Oct 2024 10:50 am - Jerusalem Time
Blinken: Israel needs to do more to get aid into Gaza
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel needs to show “more progress” on aid flows to Gaza, the State Department said. Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, a day after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed Israeli officials on the need to increase aid flows to the Gaza Strip. Blinken said he discussed “urgent and sustainable steps” needed from Israel to improve humanitarian conditions.
- "I can confirm that there is progress, which is good, but more progress needs to be made, and more importantly, it needs to continue," Blinken said, referring to the flow of aid to Gaza.
- According to media reports, the United States has warned that continued flow of American weapons to Israel could depend on improvements in humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where Israel has sharply reduced aid in recent months. Blinken did not explicitly threaten to withhold weapons but said Washington would follow U.S. law, which requires it to withdraw military aid to countries that block the flow of American humanitarian aid.
- Shortly before Blinken left for Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, sirens went off in Tel Aviv as Israeli air defenses intercepted projectiles fired from Lebanon. Blinken was directed to an area of his hotel to take cover.
- According to experts, it seems that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's visit to the Middle East, which may be his last under President Joe Biden, and which he began in Israel, was not more fortunate than similar visits he made during the year of the war on Gaza.
- There are no statements indicating that Israel has yielded to American diplomatic pressure to end the war in Gaza, nor is there an announcement of flexibility in the Israeli position that would contribute to reaching a hostage agreement.
- However, Blinken insisted on calling on Israel to end the war based on the new facts imposed by the military operations on the ground, most notably the "killing of the head of the Hamas political bureau, Yahya Sinwar," and he also stressed an American position that completely rejects the reoccupation of Gaza.
- Blinken, who arrived in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, coming from Israel, considered that there are other paths that can contribute to stability in the Middle East that pass through Saudi Arabia, according to analysts. Washington sees the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel as a strategic reward that could entice Israel to stop the war.
- In Rome, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Israel had a military interest in allowing humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza. “Failure to do so creates a generation of Palestinians who will continue to really resist cooperation with Israel in the future, and so you’re actually increasing the number of insurgents in the space,” he said, according to the Washington Post.
- Georgios Petropoulos, the head of the UN humanitarian office in Gaza, painted a desperate picture of the northern part of the enclave, describing conditions in areas where fighting has resumed as “catastrophic.” Israel has stepped up its military operations in the northern Gaza Strip in recent weeks on the grounds that Hamas fighters are regrouping there.
- Health officials postponed the third phase of a polio vaccination programme to inoculate more than 119,000 children in northern Gaza on Wednesday, citing escalating violence amid the Israeli offensive. The World Health Organisation said the heavy bombardment made it impossible for medical workers to safely vaccinate children.
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Blinken: Israel needs to do more to get aid into Gaza