Antony Blinken’s latest trip comes as the Israeli military has intensified its campaign in the Palestinian enclave as well as in Lebanon against Iran-aligned Hezbollah militia. File
| Photo Credit: AP

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in Israel on Tuesday (October 22, 2024), the first stop of a wider Middle East tour aimed at reviving Gaza ceasefire talks and discussing the enclave’s future following the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, but any breakthrough ahead of the looming U.S. election looks elusive.

The top U.S. diplomat’s latest trip — his eleventh to the region since Palestinian Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7 triggering the Gaza war — comes as the Israeli military has intensified its campaign in the Palestinian enclave as well as in Lebanon against Iran-aligned Hezbollah militia.

Mr. Blinken’s planned week-long trip, which will include a stop in Jordan on Wednesday (October 23, 2024) and Doha, also comes as the region braces for Israel’s response to Iran’s October 1 ballistic missile attack on Israel. The retaliation could disrupt oil markets and risks igniting a full-blown war between the arch-enemies.

On Gaza, Mr. Blinken will focus discussions on how to end the war, plans for the enclave after the fighting ends and how to improve humanitarian assistance, said a senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Last week Mr. Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote to Israeli officials demanding concrete measures to address the worsening situation in Gaza, or face potential restrictions on U.S. military aid.

The official said that in his meetings with Israel and Arab countries, Mr. Blinken will drill down on “day after” issues, particularly security, governance and reconstruction. Having detailed plans for each of these has been seen as prerequisites for achieving any lasting resolution to the conflict.

The secretary of state will also discuss with Israel and other countries how to secure a diplomatic resolution to the conflict with Hezbollah, and will continue Washington’s conversation with the Israelis about their expected response to Iran’s missile attack, said the official.

Breakthrough ‘hard to imagine’

Experts say Hamas and Israel remain deeply at odds and are unlikely to make significant concessions before the November 5 U.S. presidential election, which could upend U.S. policy.

“It’s very hard to imagine” that Mr. Blinken would score a breakthrough this week, said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, given that neither Hamas nor Benjamin Netanyahu have any urgency to end the war.

“Taking advantage of the moment is a fundamentally misleading sort of concept in this case because I’m not sure there is a moment,” Mr. Miller said.

The Mr. Biden administration cast the killing of Sinwar by the Israeli military last week as a possible opening that would finally pave the way to end the Gaza war. Still, Israeli Prime Minister Mr. Netanyahu says fighting will continue.

Israel is accelerating military operations to push Hezbollah away from its northern border while thrusting into Gaza’s densely packed Jabalia refugee camp in what Palestinians and U.N. agencies fear could be an attempt to seal off northern Gaza from the rest of the enclave.

Analysts say Mr. Netanyahu may prefer to wait out the end of U.S. President Joe Biden’s term, which ends in January, and take his chances with the next President, whether Democratic nominee Kamala Harris or her Republican rival Donald Trump. Mr. Netanyahu spoke to Mr. Trump about the conflict by phone on Saturday (October 19, 2024), both Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Netanyahu’s offices said.

A Gaza ceasefire proposal that the U.S. and mediators Egypt and Qatar have worked on for months is no longer feasible, Mr. Miller said, and the lack of command and control within Hamas also complicates the negotiation process.

“The proposal that would be most realistic would be if Blinken came and said ‘we’ll do an all for all’. You get all the hostages back, and the Israelis will declare a ceasefire,” Mr. Miller said, cautioning that even that formulation would have many questions that needed to be answered.

Speaking to reporters on Monday (October 21, 2024), deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel insisted that U.S. officials feel “there is an opportunity to move the ball forward” on a ceasefire.

“I’m not going to speculate on any immediate end product or outcome (from the trip), but we feel that it is important to engage not just with the Israelis, but also other partners in the region,” he said.

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to the press onboard of Air Force One en route from Israel, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, on October 18, 2023.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday said Egypt’s president has agreed to open a border crossing into Gaza to allow in 20 trucks with humanitarian aid.

Mr. Biden said he spoke with Egypt President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi after his visit to Israel, where leaders there agreed to allow the aid in.

Israel sealed off the Gaza Strip, stopping all entry of food, water, medicine, and fuel to its 2.3 million people following the Hamas attack on October 7.

White House officials said the aid would flow in the coming days. Mr. Biden said if Hamas confiscates the aid, “it will end”.