US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Japan for a meeting of G7 foreign ministers set to seek a common line on Gaza as calls mount for a ceasefire, AFP reports.

Arriving for two days of discussions in Tokyo following his latest whirlwind tour of the Middle East, Blinken was set to “brief his counterparts on his trip … and progress on delivering humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza and efforts to contain the conflict,” a senior State Department official said.

German counterpart Annalena Baerbock said the G7 would “discuss how we can achieve humanitarian pauses together to alleviate the suffering of the people in Gaza.”

“For me, it is clear that the Hamas terrorists have brought infinite suffering to Israel and the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza with the horrific attacks of October 7. Hamas cannot be allowed to determine the fate of the people in the Gaza Strip,” she added.

Valerie Niquet from the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS) told AFP that any joint G7 call for a humanitarian truce would be “without binding language and in general terms”.