Saudi- Israel ties depend on how the Palestinians are treated, says Antony Blinken
The Status of the U.S.-Israel War on the Gaza Strip after the Saudi-Bahamas-Brazil War
After his stop in the Emirates, Mr. Blinken flew to Saudi Arabia to see Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi ruler, at a luxury desert camp. In the hopes of getting Israelis to work towards establishing a Palestinian state, President Biden and his aides are trying to revive discussions about Riyadh’s move to normal diplomatic relations with Israel.
Mr. Blinken emphasized the “continued U.S. commitment to securing lasting regional peace that ensures Israel’s security and advances the establishment of an independent Palestinian state,” the spokesman, Matthew Miller, said in a statement.
The New York Times reported in September that the Emirates had been sending weapons to the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group that is battling the regular army in Sudan, bringing the arms into the country through a remote military air base across the border in Chad. Mr. Blinken said in December that the two warring armies and associated militias in Sudan were all committing war crimes.
The Biden administration is concerned with the security of the United States and it is not uncommon for the country to disagree about certain issues like the Sudan war.
Blinken did not offer specifics on potential contributions. Financial and in-kind support from the UAE and Saudi Arabia could be essential to the success of any plan.
Blinken said Monday that Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey have agreed to begin planning for the reconstruction and governance of Gaza once Israel’s war against Hamas ends. The countries had resisted the U.S. calls for planning for the post-war world in order to end the suffering of the civilians in Gaza.
The Nuseirat Camp, a Gaza Refugee Camp, has been a Scene of Israeli Shelling and Gunfire since the Israel-Lebanon War
The state news agency said that an Israeli drone hit a car in southern Lebanon early Tuesday, killing three people inside. There was no immediate word on the identities of the three.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah said its exploding drones targeted the Israeli army northern command in the town of Safed — deeper into Israel than previous fire by the group. The Israeli military said a drone fell at a base in the north without causing damage, suggesting it had been intercepted. The base was not identified.
At the same time, Blinken is trying to prevent an all-out war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. After a presumed Israeli strike last week hit Beirut, killing Hamas’s deputy leader, the two sides have stepped up their exchanges.
The World Health Organization has been unable to deliver supplies to the north for two weeks. OCHA said the military rejected five attempted aid convoys to the north over that period, including planned deliveries of medical supplies and fuel for water and sanitation facilities.
The situation in northern Gaza has gotten worse since Israeli forces cut off the rest of the territory in late October. Tens of thousands of people who remain there face shortages of food and water.
The UN humanitarian office warned of the impact of fighting on aid deliveries. The military has ordered the evacuate of several warehouses, distribution centers, health facilities and shelters. Some bakeries in the central city of Deir al-Balah have been forced to shut down. A U.N. warehouse was hit last week, killing a staffer, and five other staffers were detained by the military, with two still held.
Throughout the night and into Tuesday morning, warplanes struck multiple areas in and around Khan Younis. There has been fighting in the north and the Nuseirat camp has been a scene of Israeli shelling and gunfire. They were facing heavy resistance from gunmen in the camp, he said.
Like other refugee camps in Gaza, Nuseirat was built to house Palestinians driven out of homes during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, and over the decades it has been built up into a densely populated town housing refugees and their descendants.
Over the course of the war in Gaza, Israel has killed more than 23,200 people, including two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry. There is a death toll that doesn’t differentiate between civilians and people who are fighting. More than 85% of Gaza’s population have been driven out by the fighting, and a quarter of their residents are in danger of dying from lack of food, water and medicine as a result of the Israeli siege.
The Israeli military says it has dismantled Hamas infrastructure in northern Gaza, where large swaths of the cityscape have been demolished. Israel says there are pockets of militants in that area. The offensive’s focus has shifted to the southern city of Khan Younis, where ground troops have been fighting militants for weeks, and a number of urban refugee camps in central Gaza.
When Hamas are defeated, the U.S. and Israel are deeply divided about how Gaza will be run. The Palestinians are currently in charge of parts of the West Bank, but the American officials want them to take over in Gaza. Israeli leaders have rejected that idea but haven’t put forward a concrete plan beyond an open-ended military control over the territory.
But there were at least two conditions for that, Mr. Blinken said: an end to Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, and Israel’s agreeing to take practical steps toward establishing a Palestinian state.
Before flying to Israel on Monday night, Mr. Blinken told reporters in the desert oasis town of Al Ula, Saudi Arabia, that the Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, had told him in a meeting there that the Saudis still had “a clear interest” in trying to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel.
Arab leaders are taking a different approach to the war. The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, will travel to Jordan on Wednesday to hold a meeting with the king and the president of Egypt to discuss the situation in Gaza. The leader of the coalition plans to meet with Mr. Abbas on his trip.
The Israeli-Israeli Interaction in the Light of the Oct. 7 Referendum on the Hamas-Staadi Conflict
“But we have to get through this very challenging moment and ensure that Oct. 7 can never happen again and work to build a much different, and much better, future,” he added.
Before the start of his meeting with the foreign minister on Tuesday morning, he said in public remarks that he looked forward to sharing his knowledge from countries around the region. I know that you are trying to build better integration in the Middle East and that there actually are real opportunities there.
Mr. Binney pressed forward on Tuesday, dangling the potential for normalized ties in an attempt to get Israel to consider a political solution to the Gaza conflict.
And many Israelis are reluctant to give the Palestinians greater rights or concede to a Palestinian state, with its own military and arsenal, given the horrors of Oct. 7, when Hamas fighters killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel, most of them civilians, according to Israeli officials.
The war in Gaza has made it hard for the United States and Saudi Arabia to forge an agreement similar to the one proposed by the Biden administration last year.
