2024-01-10 09:08:02
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will seek governance reforms when he meets with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday, as Washington seeks to drum up support for its post-war plans. in Gaza, which also include measures towards the formation of a Palestinian state.
Blinken said he has secured commitments from several countries in the region for contributions to the reconstruction and governance of the Gaza Strip after Israel’s war against Hamas and that broader normalization of Arab-Israeli relations is still possible, but only if there is “a path to a Palestinian state.”
The strategy faces significant obstacles. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government strongly opposes the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and Western-backed Palestinian autocratic leaders lack legitimacy in the eyes of many Palestinians.
The war in Gaza continues with no end in sight, fueling a humanitarian catastrophe in the tiny coastal enclave. The fighting has also increased violence between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah militants, raising fears of a broader conflict.
On his fourth visit to the region since the war began three months ago, Blinken has met in recent days with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey. He claims they are open to contributing to post-war plans in exchange for progress in creating a Palestinian state.
After meeting with Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders on Tuesday, Blinken offered a somber message, saying Israel must stop undermining the Palestinians’ ability to govern themselves with its settlement expansion, home demolitions and evictions in the West Bank.
But he also said that the Palestinian Authority “has a responsibility to reform itself, to improve its governance” and that he would discuss this with Abbas, 88, who has not run in elections since 2005 and lacks support among his own people.
The Palestinian Authority governs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank under interim peace agreements reached in the 1990s, and cooperates with Israel on security issues. But it has been unable to prevent settlement expansion on land it claims for a future state, and there have been no serious or relevant peace talks since Netanyahu returned to power in 2009.
Abbas was scheduled to meet later Wednesday with the leaders of Jordan and Egypt, two American allies who have long served as mediators in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in the Jordanian Red Sea city of Aqaba.
Israel has vowed to keep fighting until it crushes Hamas and recovers dozens of hostages captured by the militants after the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war. Israeli authorities say the campaign will continue for the rest of the year, and its own post-war plans call for indefinite military control over the territory, from which it withdrew its soldiers and settlers in 2005.
Nearly 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been driven from their homes by the fighting, and nearly a quarter of them are at risk of famine because the Israeli siege allows in barely a trickle of food, water , medications and other supplies.
Blinken called for more food, water, medicine and other relief materials to be brought in and distributed more effectively, and called on Israel to “do everything we can to remove any obstacles.”
The offensive has turned much of the northern territory, including Gaza City, into a wasteland, and raised concerns about whether the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled those areas will ever be able to return. Far-right members of Netanyahu’s government have asked to be relocated elsewhere, something critics say amounts to ethnic cleansing.
Blinken said the United States opposes that idea and that relocation is not the policy of the Israeli government. He also said he had secured agreement on a United Nations inspection mechanism in northern Gaza to determine how and when people could return.
The military is now focused on major operations in the southern city of Khan Younis and urban refugee camps in central Gaza dating back to the 1948 war over the creation of Israel. Hundreds of people have been killed in recent days in continued attacks across the territory, including areas far to the south where people were told to take shelter.
An airstrike Tuesday night hit a four-story house west of the territory’s northernmost city, Rafah, killing at least 14 people and wounding at least 20, including women and children, according to health officials. Associated Press journalists watched as the dead and wounded were taken to nearby hospitals.
Jaber Abu Hamed, who fled his home in Gaza City last month and was taking shelter near the main Khan Younis hospital, said he heard constant gunshots and explosions. “The ambulance sirens didn’t stop,” he said.
Since the war began, the Israeli offensive on Gaza has killed more than 23,200 Palestinians, around 1% of the population, and injured more than 58,000, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza. About two-thirds of the dead are women and children. The death toll does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
In the October 7 attack, in which Hamas and other militants overran Israeli defenses and raided several towns, Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians. They captured about 250 more, nearly half of whom were freed during a week-long ceasefire in November.
The Israeli military says it is trying to avoid harm to civilians and blames Hamas for the high death toll because the militants fight in densely populated areas. He claims to have killed some 8,000 militiamen—without presenting evidence—and that 186 of his soldiers have lost their lives in the offensive.
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Jobain reported from Rafah, Gaza Strip and Magdy from Cairo.
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