US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday urged Israelis and Palestinians to act urgently to restore calm, amid a new spiral of deadly violence that international calls for restraint have so far failed to address. appease.
The visit of the head of the American diplomacy, second leg of a Middle Eastern tour that began Sunday in Egypt, was planned for a long time but took a different turn with the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian violence in recent days.
The deaths on the Palestinian and Israeli sides have multiplied: attacks, shootings, air raids and sanctions continue to respond to each other, raising fears of a new spiral.
“We now urge all parties to take urgent steps for a return to calm and de-escalation,” Blinken said in Jerusalem, at a press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He will make an official visit to France on February 2 where he will meet French President Emmanuel Macron, his cabinet said Monday evening.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Blinken said he wanted to “restore a sense of security for both Israelis and Palestinians, which of course is sorely lacking.”
He met his Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen in the evening and then Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
On Tuesday, he will meet in particular with the President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
“It is everyone’s responsibility to take action to ease tensions rather than inflame them, to work so that people will one day be free from fear in their communities, homes and places of worship.” , said Mr. Blinken on his arrival Monday at Tel Aviv airport.
In the wake of anti-Israeli attacks, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, the most right-wing in Israel’s history, announced measures aimed at punishing the relatives of the perpetrators of the attacks.
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 near a synagogue in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian part of the Israeli-occupied Holy City, in view to destroy it. The home of a Palestinian who injured two Israelis, a father and son, on Saturday, also in East Jerusalem, was also to be sealed.
Israeli guards killed a Palestinian in the West Bank on Sunday.
On Monday, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian in Hebron, in the south of this territory, according to the Palestinian authorities. The army said they shot at a fleeing driver.
The anti-Israel attacks came after Israel’s deadliest raid in years in the West Bank with ten Palestinians killed in Jenin including fighters, followed by rocket fire from Gaza into Israel and Israeli retaliatory strikes. The head of American diplomacy also addressed the issue of Iran, an enemy of the Jewish state. “Just as Iran has long supported terrorists who attack Israelis and others, the (Iranian) regime is now providing drones that Russia uses to kill innocent Ukrainian civilians,” he charged. . In return, Russia provides sophisticated weapons to Iran,” he said.
On Monday, the Palestinian Hamas, the Islamist movement in power in the Gaza Strip, judged that the visit of the American secretary of state underlined “the absolute support and the partnership with the occupation” Israeli.
Mr. Blinken began his tour in Egypt, a country whose diplomacy and especially the intelligence services are regularly called upon to intervene in the Palestinian question.
The first Arab country to have signed peace with Israel in 1979 and a neighboring state in the Gaza Strip under Israeli blockade for more than 15 years, Egypt receives both Israeli heads of government and leaders of the various Palestinian parties.
Again, the Egyptian presidency assured that “Egypt had made efforts in recent days to try to control the outbreak of tensions”.
If the United States and Egypt, one of the main recipients of American military aid, are important diplomatic actors, the fact remains that for the experts, the room for maneuver of Mr. Blinken seems limited.
In private, American officials do not hide their frustration with the escalation and impasse in which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict finds itself.
If little progress is expected on the de-escalation front, Washington is above all trying to reconnect with Mr. Netanyahu, according to analysts.
Officials have recently succeeded in Jerusalem and some experts are talking about a possible visit by Mr. Netanyahu to the White House in February.
30/01/2023 21:58:26 – Jerusalem (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
