While the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, together with Emirati and Saudi officials, was seeking solutions this Monday to calm regional waters, an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon has ended the life of an elite Hezbollah commander, Wissam al -Tawi.
Wissam al-Tawi is a member of a secret party force operating along the border, a Lebanese security official has revealed to Reuters. The commander is the highest-ranking Hezbollah profile reached by Israel since the war began three months ago.
Blinken has met with the authorities of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia as part of his fourth tour of the region since the war began three months ago. After passing through Turkey, Greece, Jordan and Qatar, Blinken has emphasized “the importance of avoiding the further spread of the conflict” in conversations with the president of the UAE, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, US sources said.
“This is a conflict that could easily metastasize, causing even more insecurity and even more suffering,” Blinken said Sunday in Qatar. A few hours after these statements, the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah party attacked a strategic air base in northern Israel with missiles.
The Israeli Army declined to comment on the extent of the damage, although it assured that it had other reserve systems to continue protecting the area. The attack has not only added tension to the hostilities of recent days, it has also revealed the military capacity of the Lebanese militia.
In the last two weeks there has been an escalation of hostilities in this border area, which has caused more than a hundred deaths, including more than 30 civilians, and thousands of displaced people in both countries.
Israel has warned of opening a war front if Hezbollah continues hostilities, while the Lebanese party has assured that it is not looking for a new front, but it also has no intention of stopping the low-intensity fight it maintains against Tel Aviv.
The Israeli airstrike that killed one of the Hamas leaders in Beirut, Saleh al Arouri, raised fears of a new war. Added to this are the US and Israeli aggressions against pro-Iranian militias in Syria and Iraq. In the Red Sea, Yemen’s Houthis continue to attack ships in protest of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, putting an important global trade route in check. The United States killed ten Houthi militants in an attempt to repel more attacks by the pro-Iran militia against commercial ships.
Despite its selective actions against pro-Iran militants, Washington expressed that it does not want to get too involved in this territory. He supports Israel logistically, but seeks to reduce tensions in the region. In revelations by the Washington Post, President Joe Biden’s administration would have warned Israel that it has serious difficulties fighting on two fronts in Gaza and Lebanon, if hostilities against the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah party increase.
Biden would have called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu up to three times a day to dissuade Israel from launching a simultaneous attack against Hezbollah, the newspaper noted.
While in Doha and Dubai he focused discussions on the situation in the Gaza Strip and hostilities on the border between Israel and Lebanon, Blinken discussed the attacks in the Red Sea with the Saudi crown prince, Mohamed Bin Salman.
Four years ago, Riyadh launched an initiative of the countries of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to address the security of the territory, with the collaboration of Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea. According to Al Jazeera, Riyadh seeks to recover that agreement to collaborate with the United States and improve the security of this trade route to avoid attacks by the Houthis.
The American press also speculates that Blinken wanted to discuss the normalization of relations between Tel Aviv and Riyadh, a process that was suspended after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.
At the same time, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, also visited Saudi Arabia to discuss initiatives involving Brussels and countries in the region to reach a solution to the Gaza war and other points of tension. “I look forward to substantial discussions on how we can advance our joint initiative between the EU and Arab countries (for a peace agreement),” Borrell said.
In an interview with the EFE agency, the head of European diplomacy proposed the creation of a specific operation for the protection of maritime trade in the Red Sea, which will have to be approved “unanimously” and in which countries that may participate may participate. they want it.
“We are going to put it on the table in the first meetings now that will be held next week in Brussels. But it is not a quick thing, deciding 27 (Member States) takes time,” he assured. Borrell arrived in Riyadh from Lebanon, where he met with Hezbollah’s parliamentary representatives. Borrell noted that he did not get the “impression” that Hezbollah is “seeking war” with Israel, although he described the situation as even “uglier” following the Israeli attack on Hamas in Beirut.