Blinken passed through
Israeli checkpoints to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in
the West Bank city of Ramallah, and then traveled to Iraq.
Top US diplomat Antony Blinken said the
Palestinian Authority (PA) should play a central role in the future of the Gaza
Strip, as he met with Iraqi leaders and toured the region amid spiraling
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, and then traveled on to Iraq. It was his second
visit to the region since the Hamas militants who rule Gaza launched a surprise
attack on Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 240
others hostage, according to Israel.
Palestinian views,
voices and aspirations need to be “at the center” of conversations about the
future of Gaza, Blinken told reporters in Baghdad.
As Israel continued a
campaign of air strikes that Gaza health officials say has killed 9,770
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.
Blinken passed through
Israeli checkpoints to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in
the West Bank city of Ramallah, and then traveled on to Iraq. It was his second
visit to the region since the Hamas militants who rule Gaza launched a surprise
attack on Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 240
others hostage, according to Israel.
Palestinian views,
voices and aspirations need to be “at the center” of conversations about the
future of Gaza, Blinken told reporters in Baghdad.
As Israel continued a
campaign of air strikes that Gaza health officials say has killed 9,770
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.
"This is a
process," Blinken said about the push for humanitarian pauses, saying
Israel has important questions about how they would work, and details are being
discussed now.
It is important that any
pause advance several issues, including hostage release, he said.
In discussions with the
Iraqi government, Blinken said, "I made very clear that the attacks, the
threats coming from militia that are aligned with Iran are totally unacceptable."
The United States is
sending a message to "anyone who might seek to take advantage of the
conflict in Gaza to threaten our personnel here or anywhere else in the region:
'Don't do it,'" he said.
POST-CONFLICT
PLAN
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.
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 PA 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.
The two met for about an
hour but did not address the media.
"We need to see the
U.S. playing the role of an honest mediator, not adopting the Israeli
narrative," Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian Mission to the United
Kingdom, told CBS on Sunday.
Blinken had some
"good ideas" about the future he said, but "now is the time to
....stop the murder of civilians"
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 statement on the
meeting.
"The secretary also
expressed the commitment of the United States to working toward the realization
of the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations for the establishment of a
Palestinian state," Miller said.
TROUBLED
AUTHORITY
Blinken has suggested an
"effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority" would make the most
sense to ultimately run the strip but admitted that other countries and
international agencies would likely play a role in security and governance in
the interim.
Abbas' PA, which
exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has seen its
popularity shrivel amid allegations of graft, incompetence and widely hated
security cooperation arrangements with Israel. It is unclear who will succeed
the aging and ailing Abbas, 87, a staunch opponent of Hamas.
The foreign ministers of
Egypt and Jordan said on Saturday after meeting with Blinken that it was
premature to talk about the future of Gaza, as they called for an immediate
ceasefire to address the humanitarian crisis that has engulfed the strip’s 2.3
million residents.
Blinken argued that a
ceasefire would only allow Hamas to regroup, but is trying to convince Israel
to agree to location-specific pauses that would allow much needed aid to be
distributed within Gaza.
While Hamas tightly
controls besieged Gaza, the West Bank is a complex patchwork of hillside
cities, Israeli settlements and army checkpoints that split Palestinian
communities.
Violence was already at
a more than 15-year high this year but has surged further since the war began,
with more than 170 attacks on Palestinians involving Jewish settlers recorded by
the United Nations.
Blinken credited Abbas
for tamping down tension in the West Bank and told him he had pressed Israeli
officials for accountability, the senior State Department official said.
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