US secretary of state Antony Blinken has urged Middle East countries to use their influence over regional actors to ensure the Gaza conflict is contained and prevent “an endless cycle of violence,” as he continued his week-long trip aimed at calming tensions.
Blinken was speaking on Saturday, after Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah group said it had fired rockets at Israel, who said it had struck a “terrorist cell” in retaliation. Hezbollah called the strikes a “preliminary response” to the killing of a senior Hamas leader in Beirut last week in an attack widely attributed to Israel
“We want to make sure that countries … [are] using their relationships with some of the actors that might be involved to keep a lid on things, to make sure that we’re not seeing the spread of conflict,” Blinken said before flying to Jordan, after meeting the leaders of Turkey and Greece.
His comments came as France’s foreign minister told her Iranian counterpart that “Iran and its affiliates” must stop “destabilising acts” that could spark a broader conflict in the Middle East.
Blinken, who will also visit Arab states, Israel and the occupied West Bank, said he would be looking at what could be done to maximise the protection of civilians in Gaza and increase deliveries of humanitarian assistance.
“Far too many Palestinians have been killed, especially children,” he said.
The war began when Hamas fighters attacked Israel on 7 October, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed 22,700 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
The Israeli army said on Saturday it had “completed the dismantling” of Hamas’s command structure in the northern Gaza Strip.
Army spokesperson Daniel Hagari told reporters that Palestinian militants were now operating in the area only sporadically and “without commanders”.
“Now the focus is on dismantling Hamas in the centre of the Gaza Strip and in the south of the Gaza Strip,” he said, while acknowledging that the task will take time.
On Saturday, fighting raged in and near the southern city of Khan Younis, where the Israeli military said it had killed members of Hamas. The Palestinian Red Crescent reported heavy shelling near the Al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis. Shrapnel flew into the medical facility amid the sound of firing from drones, it said on social media.
Elsewhere, the Palestinian health ministry said an Israeli airstrike killed six people in the West Bank city of Jenin early on Sunday. The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said there was a major deployment of Israeli forces in Jenin.
Some of Israel’s forces have recently been withdrawn from Gaza, partly in response to US pressure. Speaking about Israel’s efforts to dismantle Hamas in the central and southern Gaza Strip, Hagari said “we will do it in a different way” without elaborating.
On his current trip, Blinken is expected to put pressure on the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to do more to protect civilians in Gaza, allow more aid into the territory and rein in outspoken far-right ministers who have called for the mass resettlement of Palestinians – rhetoric the US has condemned as inflammatory and irresponsible.
Netanyahu has angered Washington by so far refusing to engage in any detailed planning for the governance of Gaza when Israel’s military offensive ends, and by rejecting the US’s preferred options. In recent days, senior Israeli officials have rushed to offer some postwar proposals.
Washington wants regional countries, including Turkey, to play a role in reconstruction, governance and, potentially, security in Gaza, which has been run by Hamas since 2007, an official said.
On Saturday, Blinken said that Turkey is committed to playing “a positive, productive” role for postwar Gaza and prepared to use its influence in the region to prevent the Israel-Hamas conflict from broadening even more.
The comments came after his meeting with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a strong critic of Israel’s military actions in Gaza.
During the talks which went for more than an hour, Blinken pointed to the need to “work toward broader, lasting regional peace that ensures Israel’s security and advances the establishment of a Palestinian state”, US officials said.
A Turkish diplomatic source said foreign minister Hakan Fidan pressed Blinken during a separate meeting for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza that could ensure the smooth delivery of aid.
Erdoğan has turned into one of the Muslim world’s harshest critics of Washington’s support for Israel’s Gaza campaign. He has compared Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, and accused the US of sponsoring the “genocide” of Palestinians.
He has also rebuffed US pressure to cut off the suspected flow of funding to Hamas through Turkey, and defended the group as legitimately elected “liberators” fighting for their land.
Reuters, Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press contributed to this report
