US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Monday, January 30 in Cairo, Israelis and Palestinians to “de-escalate”, shortly before traveling to Jerusalem and Ramallah. This visit, planned for a long time, took a different turn with the new spiral of violence. “We call on all parties for calm and to ease tensions,” Blinken said at a press conference alongside his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shukri, who called for “a just solution” to the Israeli-Israeli conflict. Palestinian.
Egypt is regularly called upon to intervene in the Palestinian question: a neighboring state in the Gaza Strip and the first Arab country to have signed peace with Israel, it receives both Israeli heads of government and Palestinian leaders. Again, Cairo assured that “Egypt has led efforts in recent days to try to control the outbreak of tensions”.
The fear of the gear
Deaths on the Palestinian and Israeli sides have multiplied in recent days: attacks, shootings, air raids and punitive measures respond to each other despite international calls for restraint. In the wake of anti-Israel attacks, Binyamin Netanyahu’s government, the most right-wing in Israel’s history, announced measures to punish relatives of the attackers.
On Sunday, Israeli forces sealed off the home of the family of a Palestinian man who killed six Israelis and a Ukrainian woman on Friday in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian part of the Israeli-occupied Holy City, with a view to destroying it. The home of a Palestinian who injured two Israelis on Saturday, also in East Jerusalem, was also to be sealed. Israeli guards on Sunday killed a Palestinian in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. On Monday, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian in Hebron, in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian authorities.
The anti-Israel attacks came after Israel’s deadliest raid in years in the West Bank with ten Palestinians killed in Jenin, followed by rocket fire from Gaza into Israel and retaliatory Israeli strikes.
This violence raises fears of a new spiral and Mr. Blinken must reiterate the American call for restraint on Monday with Mr. Netanyahu and then with the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas. Washington has condemned an “appalling” attack in East Jerusalem.
In private, US officials do not hide their frustration with the escalation and impasse in which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict finds itself. Analysts say Washington is mostly trying to reconnect with Mr. Netanyahu, whose new government is the most right-wing in Israel’s history. Officials have recently succeeded in Jerusalem and some experts are talking about a possible visit by the Israeli Prime Minister to the White House in February.
