Blinken heads to Mideast for another push for elusive ceasefire
WASHINGTON/BEIRUT — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed to the Middle East on Monday to make another push for an elusive ceasefire, seeking to kickstart negotiations to end the Gaza war and defuse the spillover conflict in Lebanon.
Blinken’s trip to the region, his 11th since the attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, that triggered the Gaza war, comes as Israel intensifies its military campaign in Gaza, and in Lebanon against the Iran-aligned Hezbollah militia.
Israel has raised the stakes by assassinating the leaders of Hezbollah in Lebanon, including its veteran secretary-general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and of Hamas in Gaza while showing no sign of reining in its ground and aerial offensives.
Killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week after a year-long search was a major victory for Israel. But its leaders say the war must go on until the Islamist group is eliminated as a military and security threat to Israel.
Iran and its allies have said Sinwar’s death in a gunbattle with Israeli soldiers in Gaza will strengthen their resolve.
Blinken will discuss with leaders in Israel and neighboring Arab states the importance of ending the war in Gaza, ways to chart a post-conflict plan for the Palestinian enclave, and how to reach a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the State Department said in a statement.
U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein held talks with Lebanese officials in Beirut on Monday on conditions for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah after Israel struck branches across Lebanon of a financial institution linked to the group.
He said that it was “not enough” for both sides to commit to U.N. resolution 1701, which ended the last round of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in 2006 and which calls for southern Lebanon to be free of any troops or weapons other than those of the Lebanese state.
Israel carried out several new strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Monday, including one outside the main government hospital in the city, according to a hospital source.
Hochstein said that neither Hezbollah nor Israel had adequately implemented the U.N. resolution, and that while it would be the basis for the end to current hostilities, the U.S. was seeking to determine what more needed to be done to make sure it was implemented “fairly, accurately and transparently.”
“We are working with government of Lebanon, the state of Lebanon, as well as the government of Israel to get to a formula that brings an end to this conflict,” he said.
Israel has pursued a ground campaign over the past month after a year of border clashes touched off by Hezbollah rocket fire into Israel in support of Hamas in Gaza.
