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.
A Lebanese official denied on Thursday a Reuters report that Beirut had agreed with Israel to a shortlist of countries that could send troops to Lebanon to verify the disarmament of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and said it was following up on the issue with Washington.
Israel won't withdraw from southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed, the defence minister said on Thursday, qualifying remarks he made a day earlier that had suggested Israeli forces would occupy the territory indefinitely and drew U.S. criticism.
Israeli troops clashed with Jewish settlers on Wednesday while trying to disperse them from a West Bank outpost they set up directly in front of Palestinian homes, and later withdrew from the area after failing to clear the settlers, witnesses said.
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