The White House has been pushing Israel to massively reduce its military presence in Gaza, US President Joe Biden said on Monday as Secretary of State Antony Blinken was schedule to visit Tel Aviv on Tuesday to meet with top official about the transition to a low intensity campaign in the enclave.
“I have been quietly working with the Israeli government to get them [to] reduce and significantly get out of Gaza,” Biden said, in what has been one of his clearest statements to date expressing his desire for the Gaza war to end.He spoke after several protesters calling “ceasefire now” interrupted his remarks at the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, where avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof gunned down nine Black parishioners in 2015.
He spoke after several protesters calling “ceasefire now” interrupted his remarks at the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, where avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof gunned down nine Black parishioners in 2015.
“I understand their passion,” Biden said of the protesters as security removed them from the church.
Blinken’s Middle East tour continues
In Al Ula city, in Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stressed the importance of stopping the military operations in Gaza and forming a path for peace when he met with Blinken, the Saudi state news agency SPA reported.
He also underscored the need for working to create conditions for restoring the stability and the peace track to ensure the Palestinian people obtain their legitimate rights and achieve just and lasting peace.
It was a message that Blinken heard as he visited Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates during his diplomatic blitz this week. On Monday Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas visited Cairo to discuss the importance of ending the war with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi, according to the Palestine News Agency Wafa.
The US has publicly defended the IDF campaign in Gaza and provided military support even as it has pressed Israel to begin a low intensity phase and to do more to both protect Palestinian civilians and to secure the entry of humanitarian assistance into the enclave.
In Qatar, Blinken on Sunday said, that “to many innocent Palestinian lives had been lost.”
Prior to leaving Saudi Arabia for Israel, Blinken laid out all these points for reporters including his support for Israeli security and Palestinian statehood.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Monday that G7 major powers are working with Israel to secure a “rapid” end to its devastating war in Gaza and reduce civilian casualties, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Monday.
An Italian foreign ministry statement said Tajani had phone calls with British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna and suggested “joint forms of pressure, at G7 level, on the parties involved (in the conflict) to achieve certain objectives”.
“G7 countries are working with the Israeli government to find a rapid way out of the military phase,” it quoted Tajani as saying as Italy begins its one-year presidency of the Group of Seven major industrialized powers.
One “absolute objective” is “to limit immediately the number of Palestinian civilian casualties”, and a second is “to put pressure on the Israeli government to end military operations” in Gaza, the statement said.
It said this would help revive prospects of negotiating the “difficult but unavoidable” two-state solution based on the pre-1967 lines.
Israel has insisted that it plans to continue its military campaign until it has destroyed Hamas in Gaza and secured the release of what now esteemed to be some 136 hostages, seized during the October 7 attack.
Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said on Monday that the free world understands that “anything short of a total Israeli victory after the 10.7 atrocities would leave Hamas free and emboldened to attack again thinking it has the support of the international community.”
A failure to defeat Hamas would “fuel violent extremism around the world the same sort of violent extremism we have been helping to thwart on the streets of Western capitals,” he said.
He spoke as the IDF has said that it is entering the third phase of the war, which began after the Hamas led October infiltration into Israel, in which over 1,200 people were killed and 250 seized as hostages. To date, 110 of those captives have been released and the bodies of an additional 11 hostages have been returned to Israel.
The Wall Street Journal said on Monday that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had indicated in an interview with them that Israel was moving form an “intense maneuvering phase of the war” toward “different types of special operations.”
Speaking with soldiers on Monday Gallant stated, “We have no moral right to stop, as long as we don’t guarantee that something like this [October 7] will never happen again.
“This is a war to ensure our existence in this country, because what happens here immediately affects what happens in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or Haifa and anywhere else,” he said.
Both he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu briefed the Likud faction on the IDF’s military campaigns in the south against Hamas and against Hezbollah in the north.
“A protracted war is not going to end either in the south or in the north and it will continue for many more months,” the Netanyahu and Gallant said according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.
A margin of international support is needed to continue to maneuver militarily, the two men explained, adding that, “we are working to ensure that support is needed,” the two men said.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he had spoken with US Vice President Kamala Harris who stressed that both she and Biden were committed to Israel’s well being and security.
I thanked her for the US’s continued support for Israel’s right and duty to defend itself – on all its borders.
“I also thanked her for the US’s ongoing efforts to see all the hostages returned home – which must be an urgent priority for the whole world.”
Reuters contributed to this report
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