World: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel as the first pit-stop of a Middle East tour aimed at shoring up the Gaza truce. Blinken landed at Ben Gurion International Airport early Tuesday. He was welcomed on the tarmac by Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and other officials.
On Tuesday he said that the US would work to address the ‘grave humanitarian situations’ prevailing in the territory. Blinken vowed to “rally international support” to aid Gaza. His agenda of the visit is to coordinate reconstruction without engaging with Gaza’s militant Hamas’s rulers, who are considered terrorists by Israel and Western countries.
Antony Blinken is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the region since President Joe Biden assumed office. Blinken will not be meeting with the other party to the war, the Islamic militant group Hamas, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. Instead, he will head to Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The 11-day airstrike at Gaza killed more than 250 people, mostly Palestinians, and caused widespread destruction in the impoverished coastal territory. The truce that came into effect Friday has so far held, but it did not address any of the underlying issues.
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