Before flying to Riyadh to push normalization, Blinken stresses chance to end war
After air raid sirens sound during his breakfast in Tel Aviv, US secretary of state underscores need to take advantage of opportunity offered by Sinwar’s death
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
As he prepared to take off for Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Israel to take advantage of the opportunity created by the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and defeating Hamas’s military formations to bring the war to a successful conclusion.
“Now is the time to turn those successes into an enduring strategic success. And there are really two things left to do, get the hostages home and bring the war to an end with an understanding of what will follow,” Blinken told reporters at Ben Gurion International Airport.
In his meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials the day before, Blinken offered a similar message, according to the State Department.
Blinken noted on the tarmac that there has been more aid entering Gaza recently, “but more progress needs to be made and, most critically, it needs to be sustained.”
US President Joe Biden’s administration issued a letter last week warning that Israel’s continued receipt of offensive US weapons was at risk if Jerusalem didn’t take massive steps to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by mid-November.
The top US diplomat also repeated Washington’s desire for Israel to avoid “greater escalation” in its response to Iran’s October 1 missile attack.
“It’s also very important that Israel respond in ways that do not create greater escalation,” said Blinken.
He also urged Israel to seize the “incredible opportunity” to move toward Saudi normalization.
Blinken was on his 11th trip to the region since the Hamas attacks on October 7 of last year. His visit, which includes stops in a number of allied Arab countries, comes two weeks ahead of a closely contested presidential election in the US.
Blinken’s flight to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for talks on normalization with Israel was a change from previous plans to head to Jordan.
The normalization deal is widely seen as dead in the water, as Riyadh is now conditioning it on the establishment of a Palestinian state — a nonstarter for Israel.
Earlier Wednesday morning, air raid sirens went off in Tel Aviv as Blinken was in his hotel in the city. Senior US State Department officials and traveling press left the breakfast hall and rushed to the shelter downstairs along with other hotel guests and staff when the sirens went off.
Air defenses shot down two rockets from Lebanon that set off the air raid siren, the IDF said.
The downing of the rockets came shortly after Israeli forces intercepted two drones launched from the east targeting the Red Sea port city of Eilat, the military said.
There were no immediate reports of injuries in either the drone or rocket attacks.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq said it attacked Eilat with drones twice on Wednesday. The Iran-backed militia umbrella group said it struck “vital” targets.
In their meeting on Tuesday, Blinken and Netanyahu discussed a path forward on a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, as well as the humanitarian situation in the Strip’s north and the possibility of joining forces against Iran.
The premier and the secretary also discussed plans for the postwar phase in Gaza, a topic that Netanyahu has been wary of expounding upon publicly. However, the Israeli readout of the meeting did say that Netanyahu stressed Sinwar’s death could also have a positive impact on planning for “the day after the war.”
Israel is quietly exploring ways to replace Hamas’s civil rule in Gaza, Israeli officials told The Times of Israel, including the use of foreign private security companies to distribute humanitarian aid.
According to State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller, Blinken spoke about the “importance of charting a new path forward in the post-conflict period that allows Palestinians to rebuild their lives and provides governance, security and reconstruction for Gaza.”
He also “emphasized the need for Israel to take additional steps to increase and sustain the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and ensure that assistance reaches civilians throughout Gaza.”
A US official briefing reporters on condition of anonymity later said that in the meeting, Netanyahu had recognized the “seriousness” of US warnings to increase aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
No aid was allowed into northern Gaza by Israel for a full two-week period recently, leading aid groups and governments to sound alarm over the dangerous conditions in northern Gaza, where several hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are believed to still reside.
The halt on aid led to reports that Israel was implementing the so-called General’s Plan to lay siege to northern Gaza. The IDF has denied this and said Tuesday that it had allowed 237 trucks into Gaza over the past nine days following a directive from the political echelon.
However, Netanyahu has yet to renounce that plan, and a former deputy chief of the National Security Council accused the security cabinet of having secretly approved the controversial proposal, which he called a “war crime.”
Netanyahu and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer insisted during Tuesday’s meetings that Israel is not implementing the General’s Plan and argued that claims to the contrary have been detrimental to Israel’s public image, a US official told The Times of Israel.
Blinken urged Netanyahu to clarify this publicly, but he and his aides demurred, the official added.
The back-and-forth highlighted a long-held US frustration with the Israeli premier, who Washington feels offers private assurances that he knows the US wants to hear while failing to follow through in public due to fear of alienating the far-right coalition partners he relies on to remain in power.
The two men also discussed Israel’s expanding operation in Lebanon, as ground forces continued to uproot Hezbollah infrastructure along the border, while the Israeli Air Force conducted airstrikes in southern Lebanon and in Beirut.
Miller said they went over “ongoing efforts to reach a diplomatic resolution along the Blue Line that includes full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and allows civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes.” The Blue Line runs along the Israel-Lebanon border, and the largely unimplemented 2006 resolution stipulated that Hezbollah cannot have any armed presence within some 30 kilometers of it.
Blinken also met with other top officials, including President Isaac Herzog and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and with families of hostages.
According to a statement from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the families asked Blinken to “apply more pressure on the mediating countries, especially Qatar, to restart negotiations and leverage Sinwar’s elimination into a deal for releasing all hostages,” noting the Gulf emirate hosts Hamas leaders.
Agencies and Jacob Magid contributed to this report.