Blinken to focus on extending Gaza pause on Israel visit
Brussels, Belgium – AFP
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday he would work to prolong a pause in Israel’s war against the Palestinians in Gaza on an upcoming visit to the country.
“Looking at the next couple of days, we’ll be focused on doing what we can to extend the pause so that we continue to get more hostages out and more humanitarian assistance in,” Blinken said after a NATO meeting in Brussels.
“We’d like to see the pause extended because of what it has enabled — first and foremost that is hostages being released, coming home, being reunited with their families.”
The US top diplomat said he believed an extension was also in Israel’s interest.
“They’re also intensely focused on bringing their people home, so we’re working on that,” he said.
Blinken will pay his third wartime visit to the Middle East to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv and with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah.
A current truce in Gaza is scheduled to expire early Thursday after a six-day pause.
On October 7 Hamas militants poured over the border into Israel, killing 1,200 people.
Israel has since killed nearly 15,000 people, more than half of them women and children, according to officials, and reduced large parts of the north of the territory to rubble.
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