Closing summary
It’s been a tense day in Washington, the terrible conflict in Israel casting a shadow over national politics, and House Republicans getting ready to try to elect a new speaker – a gap in Congress made to look ever more gaping by the Middle East tumult.
This blog is closing now. It will resume on Wednesday morning US time. The Israel-Gaza global live blog continues here.
Here’s how the day went:
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will travel to Israel on Wednesday, arriving Thursday, to meet with Israeli officials show US solidarity following attacks from Hamas.
At least 20 Americans are missing in Israel amid ongoing fighting, in addition to the 14 Americans known to have been killed so far, according to the White House.
Joe Biden confirmed that Americans are among the people being held hostage in Gaza by Hamas militants.
Biden called the attacks by Hamas on southern Israel an act of “sheer evil” and reiterated in a speech from the White House that “we stand with Israel”.
The special counsel for the federal January 6 election subversion case against Donald Trump has requested that the former president be restricted from doing juror research and publishing the identities of jurors in the case.
The special counsel also filed a request asking that Donald Trump be required to say if he will advance an “advice of counsel” defense.
House Republicans supporting Kevin McCarthy plan to nominate the former House speaker, who was ousted from the post just days ago, for the position again during the upcoming election on Wednesday.
Republicans are under pressure to elect a new House speaker ASAP this week, amid the Hamas-Israel crisis reverberating across the globe.
Updated
Israel-Hamas war upends Biden's Middle East strategy
Until last weekend, the Biden administration was counting on the Middle East to remain relatively calm while it quietly pursued its main policy goals there: brokering the Israeli-Saudi detente and containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Reuters writes.
Those hopes were shattered when Palestinian Hamas militants infiltrated Israel from Gaza and rampaged through towns on Saturday, killing hundreds and abducting scores more. Israeli forces have retaliated by pounding the coastal enclave, killing hundreds and imposing a total blockade there.
After keeping the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict at arm’s length, Joe Biden now finds himself thrust into a crisis likely to reshape his Middle East policy, and into an uneasy alliance with the far-right Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. He is dispatching the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to meet with Israeli leaders this week.
It is a politically risky situation for a president seeking re-election in 2024, one that could have significant implications for world oil prices and pull US resources and attention away from what until now has been his defining foreign policy challenge – Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The surprise Hamas attack has dealt a blow to US efforts to broker a landmark normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia and complicated Washington’s approach toward Iran, Hamas’s longtime benefactor.
While US officials insist that their bid to establish ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, longtime foes, can survive the crisis, many experts take a more pessimistic view.
Quite simply, all efforts at normalization are on hold for the foreseeable future,” said Jon Alterman, head of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, contradicting the official US government line.
Khaled Elgindy, a former Palestinian negotiations adviser, accused the Biden administration of leading an Israeli-Saudi normalization process that mostly bypassed the Palestinians and their hopes of ending Israeli occupation.
That sort of neglect is part of why we’re seeing what we’re seeing,” he said.
Updated
