JERUSALEM: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday “now is the time” to end the Gaza conflict, and urged Israel to avoid further escalation with Iran.

Blinken’s visit to the region is his 11th since the Gaza conflict erupted and his first since Israel-Hezbollah violence escalated to all-out war last month. Previous US efforts to end the conflict and contain its regional fallout have failed.

Blinken said Israel had “achieved most of its strategic objectives” in Gaza and now needed to build on those gains. “Now is the time to turn those successes into enduring, strategic success,” Blinken said as he left Israel, after meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials.

Addressing Israel’s pledge to retaliate for Iran’s Oct 1 attack, he said: “It’s also very important that Israel respond in ways that do not create greater escalation.” After Israel, Blinken began a visit to Saudi Arabia, which has put on hold talks towards a normalisation deal with Israel until a Palestinian state is created.

Blinken renewed his bid to broker diplomatic ties between them, urging Israel to seize an “incredible opportunity in this region to move in a totally different direction”. Next, he is to travel to Qatar and Britain, where he will hold talks on the Gaza and Lebanon conflicts.

On aid to Gaza, Blinken said he saw “progress being made, which is good, but more progress needs to be made and, most critically, it needs to be sustained”. His remarks come as concerns rise for tens of thousands of civilians trapped by fighting in the hard-to-reach north.

Israel launched a major air and ground assault in northern Gaza this month, vowing to stop Hamas. The only medical facility still partially functioning in the targeted area has “no medicine or medical supplies”, warned Hossam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital. “People are being killed in the streets, and we can’t help them. Bodies are lying on the streets.”

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2024