(The Age, 6/11/2023)
Ramallah: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Palestinian Authority should play a central role in the future of the Gaza strip after he visited the occupied West Bank on Sunday amid spiralling tensions over Israel’s war with Hamas.
Blinken passed through Israeli checkpoints to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah on his second visit to the region since Palestinian Hamas fighters launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing 1400 people and taking more than 240 others hostage.
As Israel continued a campaign of airstrikes that Gaza health officials say has killed nearly 9500 Palestinians, Secretary of State Blinken rebuffed calls for a ceasefire from Arab officials on Saturday after appealing, unsuccessfully, to Israel for more limited pauses to the fighting a day earlier.
As well as seeking to ensure the conflict does not spread in the region, Blinken is trying to kickstart discussions on how Gaza could be governed after the complete destruction of Hamas that Israel says is its aim.
Blinken told Abbas that Washington believes the Palestinian Authority “should play a central role in what comes next in Gaza,” said a senior State Department official who briefed reporters travelling with Blinken.
Abbas told Blinken that Gaza is “an integral part” of the state Palestinians want, according to an account of the meeting from the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, which suggested any Palestinian Authority role in governing Gaza would have to be part of a wider settlement of the decades-old conflict.
“We will fully assume our responsibilities within the framework of a comprehensive political solution that includes all of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip,” Abbas was quoted by WAFA as saying.
Abbas told Blinken there should be an immediate ceasefire and that aid should be allowed into Gaza, according to spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh.
Blinken said the United States was committed to getting aid into Gaza and restoring essential services there, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a readout of the meeting.
“The Secretary also expressed the commitment of the United States to working toward the realisation of the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations for the establishment of a Palestinian state,” Miller said.
The two met for about an hour but did not address the media.
Bombardment
Israel continued to strike the Gaza Strip by air, sea, and ground overnight.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said there was also intense bombardment, artillery explosions and airstrikes in the vicinity of the Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza’s Tal Al-Hawa area.
The UN humanitarian office estimates that nearly 1.5 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are internally displaced.
The aid currently entering Gaza is “nowhere near” enough to meet people’s needs, World Food Programme head Cindy McCain said after visiting the Rafah border crossing.
“People are living in a horrific nightmare,” McCain said. “Food and water are running out. A steady flow of aid is needed to meet the desperate needs now.”
Worsening violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has fuelled concerns it could become a third front in a wider war, in addition to Israel’s northern border, where clashes with Lebanese Hezbollah forces have mounted.
An Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon killed three people on Sunday, security sources in Lebanon said.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said more than 9700 Palestinians have been killed in the territory in nearly a month of war, a number likely to rise as Israeli troops advance into dense, urban neighbourhoods.
Airstrikes hit the Maghazi refugee camp overnight, killing at least 40 people and wounding 34 others, the Health Ministry said. The camp is in the zone where Israel’s military had urged Palestinian civilians to seek refuge as it focuses its offensive on the north.
Protests
Supporters of an Islamist group marched to the US Embassy in Ankara on Sunday, hours ahead of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s expected arrival in the Turkish capital.
Several hundred protestors chanted “God is Great” and held their index fingers skywards as they approached the compound in the city’s Cukurambar neighbourhood.
Riot police lined up in front of the US complex as the crowd, many carrying black and white flags with Arabic script, called for Turkish soldiers to be sent to Gaza.
The demonstration was the latest in Turkey to highlight the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Israel’s operations in Gaza.
“We, as Muslims, gathered to state that we will speak out against this genocide and that we will not accept it, that our armies and our nation are against Israel and on the side of the people of Gaza,” protester Ebru Petek told The Associated Press.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Ramon Air Force base in southern Israel on Sunday and reiterated his opposition to a ceasefire in Gaza.
Addressing pilots, Netanyahu said, “There will be no ceasefire without the return of our hostages.”
“We say this to both our enemies and our friends. We will continue until we beat them,” he added.
Reuters