US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated this Saturday that the United States supports “humanitarian pauses” in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, but rejects calls for a “ceasefire” demanded by Arab countries.
“The United States believes that all of these efforts will be facilitated by these humanitarian pausesBlinken said at a news conference in Amman about efforts to spare Palestinian civilians and speed aid to the Gaza Strip.
The person in charge of North American diplomacy was speaking alongside his counterparts from Egypt and Jordan, following a ministerial meeting in Amman with five Arab countries.
Jordanian minister responsible for foreign affairs, Ayman Al-Safadi, called for “an end to the war” in Gaza and spoke of Israel’s “war crimes”.
“We do not accept the idea of self-defense,” he said, while his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Choukri demanded an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire.”
Blinken, for his part, reiterated that the United States views it as such A ceasefire would only keep Hamas in place, exposing differing perceptions of the conflict between the United States, Israel on the one hand and the Arab countries on the other.
The US Secretary of State will travel to Turkey next Sunday and Monday as part of his visit to the Middle East, the State Department announced today.
On October 7, Hamas – classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel – carried out an unprecedented attack on Israeli territory, killing more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, and taking more than 200 hostages . whom he holds captive in the Gaza Strip.
Israel then began strong retaliation against that poor Palestinian enclave, controlled by Hamas since 2007, with cuts to supplies of food, water, electricity and fuel and daily bombardments, followed by a ground offensive that completed the siege on Thursday. Gaza.
Source: DN
