U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday that he met with officials from Arab states and discussed the future of the Gaza Strip, as Israel resumed its assault after a week-long truce with Palestinian Hamas militants broke down.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken © Reuters
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday that he met with officials from Arab states and discussed the future of the Gaza Strip, as Israel resumed its assault after a week-long truce with Palestinian Hamas militants broke down.
Before boarding a plane at the end of his third trip to the region since Oct. 7, when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killed more than 1,200 people and took 240 hostages, Blinken said the talks on Friday focused on the current situation in Gaza, the day after the conflict, and how to create a "durable, lasting and secure peace."
A senior State Department official said Blinken met foreign ministers from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain, alongside representatives of the Palestinian Authority, on the sidelines of the COP28 UN climate conference in Dubai.
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Hezbollah rejected a ceasefire plan agreed by the Lebanese and Israeli governments in U.S.-mediated talks, as Israel kept up strikes in southern Lebanon on Thursday and said it wouldn't be withdrawing from the south.
Israel and Lebanon agreed to implement a new ceasefire after U.S.-mediated talks, the Trump administration said, raising hopes for progress toward ending the wider U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
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