Seventy-four Americans with dual nationality have already left the Gaza Strip, US President Joe Biden said this Thursday, on the eve of the start of a visit by Washington’s head of diplomacy, Antony Blinken, to the Middle East. .
“We have eliminated today [esta quinta-feira] 74 Americans with dual nationality,” Biden announced, in statements to journalists, when receiving the president of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, for a meeting in the Oval Office, in Washington.
The White House previously said that between 500 and 600 US citizens have been stranded in Gaza since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on October 7.
Since then, the nearly month-long conflict has continued to worsen with no end in sight.
Biden made the announcement as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken left for a new trip to the Middle East.
As he did last month, the US Secretary of State will highlight, during his visits to Tel Aviv and also to Amman, his support for Israel, while Washington tries to prevent the conflict from spreading in the Middle East.
Blinken’s agenda, according to the Associated Press, also includes pressuring Israeli authorities to increase humanitarian aid to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and rein in violence carried out by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.
“We are talking about concrete measures that can and should be taken to minimize the harm to men, women and children in Gaza,” Blinken told reporters as he embarked on a trip that will take him to Israel and Jordan, adding that “this is something the United States United is committed.”
The Secretary of State, while calling for brief pauses in airstrikes and humanitarian fighting, is expected to continue opposing growing calls for a broader ceasefire.
According to Joe Biden, there should be a humanitarian pause in the war between Israel and Hamas with the aim of releasing people imprisoned in the Gaza Strip.
But Blinken will also introduce a new item to the US priority list: the need for Israel and its neighbors to begin considering what a post-conflict Gaza Strip will look like, who will govern it, how to make it secure and how to establish an independent Palestinian state. .
Several voices in the United States, including Biden and Blinken, have repeatedly said they do not believe an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza is viable, and Israel agrees.
But what comes next has been little explored beyond brief comments Blinken made Tuesday in congressional testimony, when he discussed the possibility of a revitalized Palestinian Authority and perhaps Arab states and international organizations playing a role. an important role in the territory in the post-conflict.
Blinken will speak about “the United States’ commitment to working with partners to establish the conditions for lasting and sustainable peace in the Middle East, including the establishment of a Palestinian state that reflects the aspirations of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank,” he said. door.-State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller.
His itinerary after Jordan remains uncertain, although he will attend a meeting of Group of Seven foreign ministers in Japan next week, before traveling to South Korea and India for much broader discussions, including China and the war in Ukraine.
The Islamist group Hamas launched a surprise attack in southern Israel on October 7 with the launch of thousands of rockets and the incursion of armed militiamen, taking two hundred hostages.
In response, Israel declared war on Hamas, a movement that has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 and is classified as terrorist by the European Union and the United States, bombing several of the group’s infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and imposing a total siege. to the territory with a cut in the supply of water, fuel and electricity.
The conflict has already caused thousands of deaths and injuries, between soldiers and civilians, in both territories.
Source: TSF
