WASHINGTON/BEIRUT: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will make another push for a ceasefire when he heads to the Middle East on Monday, the State Department said, seeking to kick-start negotiations to end the Gaza war and also defuse the spillover conflict in Lebanon.
Blinken’s latest trip to the region, his eleventh since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas that triggered the Gaza war, comes as Israel has intensified its military campaign in Gaza and in Lebanon against the Iran-aligned Hezbollah militia.
Diplomacy has failed to ease the fighting.
The US is trying to resolve complex interlocked conflicts after Israel raised the stakes by assassinating the leaders of Hezbollah, including its veteran secretary-general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza while showing no sign of reining in its ground and aerial offensives.
Killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week after a year-long search was a major victory for Israel. But its leaders say the war must go on until the Islamist group is eliminated as a military and security threat to Israel.
Iran and its allies have said Sinwar’s death in a gunbattle with Israeli soldiers in Gaza will strengthen their resolve.
Israel has a long history of assassinating Hamas leaders which dealt heavy setbacks to the group but did not bring cripple it.
Blinken will discuss with regional leaders the importance of ending the war in Gaza, ways to chart a post-conflict plan for the Palestinian enclave, as well as how to reach a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the State Department said in a statement.
US envoy Amos Hochstein held talks with Lebanese officials in Beirut on Monday on conditions for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah after Israel struck branches across Lebanon of a financial institution linked to the group.
He said that it was “not enough” for both sides to commit to UN resolution 1701, which ended the last round of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in 2006 and which calls for southern Lebanon to be free of any troops or weapons other than those of the Lebanese state.
Hochstein said that neither Hezbollah nor Israel have adequately implemented the resolution, and that while it would be the basis for the end to current hostilities, the US is seeking to determine what more needed to be done to make sure it was implemented “fairly, accurately and transparently.”
“We are working with government of Lebanon, the state of Lebanon, as well as the government of Israel to get to a formula that brings an end to this conflict once and for all,” he said.