Blinken backs Israel’s military campaign to oust Hamas from Gaza and emphasised the significance of ensuring its security…reports Asian Lite News
Amid the ongoing military operations in Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday said the best way for Israel to normalise regional ties and isolate Iran is to agree on a Palestinian state for the resolution of the conflict, The Jerusalem Post reported on Thursday.
“One can have an integrated region with Israel–integrated with security assurances and commitments from regional countries, as well as from the United States–and a Palestinian state, or one can continue to see the terrorism, the nihilism, the destruction by Hamas, by the Houthis, by Hezbollah–all backed by Iran,” Blinken said.
The Secretary of State made these remarks while addressing media persons in Egyptian capital, Cairo, as he wrapped up a week-long trip that also included visits with top officials in Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the West Bank, and Bahrain.
“If you build that integration, if you bring Israel in, if you make the necessary commitments to security, and you move down the path to a Palestinian state, that’s the single best way to isolate, to marginalise Iran and the proxies,” Blinken said.
“The choice between these two paths is clear to many leaders in the region. It’s also the path that we fully intend to pursue with American diplomacy in the weeks and months ahead,” he added.
During his trip, Blinken focussed on the details specific to the war on Hamas, which broke out after terrorists crossed over into southern Israel from Gaza on October 7, last year, killing an estimated 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and sneaking back with about 250 hostages, The Jerusalem Post reported.
Blinken backed Israel’s military campaign to oust Hamas from Gaza and emphasised the significance of ensuring its security.
He also emphasised the importance of freeing the hostages and spoke of the US work on that effort with Egypt and Qatar, which are mediating release efforts.
Blinken, however, also took issue with the high fatality count in Gaza, based on Hamas assertions that over 23,000 Palestinians have been killed in the ongoing military operations.
The fatality count, however, was quoted by Hamas-run Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between terrorists and civilians killed.
Israel has asserted that it has killed more than 8,000 Hamas combatants in Gaza.
Iran condemns ‘arbitrary’ US, UK strikes on Yemen rebels
Iran on Friday lambasted strikes in Yemen by US and British forces, saying that the attacks against Tehran-backed Houthi rebels were “arbitrary” and a “violation” of international law.
The overnight strikes followed weeks of missile and drone attacks by Houthi forces on vessels in the Red Sea, claiming to act in solidarity with Palestinians in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said in a statement that Tehran “strongly condemned the military attacks of the United States and the United Kingdom this morning on several Yemeni cities.”
He said the strikes were “an arbitrary action, a clear violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yemen, and a violation of international laws and regulations.”
The United States and its allies said in a joint statement following the air strikes on Houthi targets that their goal “remains to de-escalate tensions and restore stability in the Red Sea.”
The attacks by the Houthis have disrupted traffic through the vital maritime route, with some companies suspending passage through the area.
Kanani warned that the attacks “will have no result other than fueling insecurity and instability in the region” as well as “diverting the world’s attention from the crimes” in Gaza, where Israel has been fighting the Palestinian territory’s Hamas rulers.
The Iranian spokesman urged the international community to take action “to prevent the spread of war.”
The Israel-Hamas war erupted on October 7 with attacks by Palestinian militants on southern Israel, resulting in about 1,140 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Iran, which supports Hamas financially and militarily, has hailed the attack but denied any involvement.
Israel has responded with a relentless military campaign that has killed more than 23,000 people in the besieged Gaza Strip, the majority of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.
The Islamic republic has repeatedly warned of a widening conflict. Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in November said the intensity of the war had rendered its expansion “inevitable.”
The Houthi rebels — part of the regional Tehran-aligned “axis of resistance” against Israel and its allies — seized Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014 and now control large swathes of the country.
Washington had said Iran was “deeply involved” in the Houthis’ maritime attacks, a claim Tehran has denied.
President Ebrahim Raisi has said Iran sees it as “its duty to support the resistance groups” but insisted that they “are independent in their opinion, decision and action.”