U.S. response to the Gaza crisis: a joint effort between Jordan, Jordan, the Jordan king and the foreign minister in Amman
The Secretary of State went to Amman on Sunday to visit a World Food Program warehouse and meet with Jordan’s king and foreign minister.
Blinken’s visit comes as developments in Lebanon, northern Israel, the Red Sea and Iraq have put intense strains on what had been a modestly successful U.S. push to prevent a regional conflagration since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, and as international criticism of Israel’s military operation mounts.
King Abdullah II “warned of the catastrophic repercussions” of the war in Gaza while calling on the U.S. to press for an immediate cease-fire, a statement by the Royal Court said.
Jordan and other Arab states have resisted public support for long-term planning because they believe the fighting must end before such discussions can begin. They have been demanding a cease-fire since mid-October as civilian casualties began to skyrocket. Israel has refused to allow aid in and the US has called for temporary pauses to allow people to get to safety.
The World Food Program’s regional coordination warehouse in Amman is being used as a conduit for the shipment of aid to Gaza.
“We continue to work on that every single day, not only to open them but to multiply them, to maximize them and to try to get more assistance, more effectively,” he said. “We’re determined to do everything we possibly can to ameliorate the situation for the men, women and children in Gaza.”
Still, the rate of trucks entering has not risen significantly. Figures from the United Nations show an average of 120 trucks a day entering through Kerem Shalom and Rafah this week.
The population of 2.3 million depends on the trucks crossing the border for survival. According to the U.N., one in four Palestinians are facing crisis levels of hunger.
Hezbollah‘s reaction to the Israeli-Hamas war and Israel-Aligned Houthi rebel attacks in the Red Sea
It would be hard to find easy discussions with allies and partners to build durable peace and security during the trip, according to an article in Greece on Saturday.
From Jordan, Blinken will travel to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on Sunday and Saudi Arabia on Monday. He will first visit Israel on Tuesday and then the west bank on Wednesday before he leaves for Egypt.
He said that his top priority is to protect civilians, ensure that Hamas cannot hit again, and create a framework for Palestinian led governance in the territory.
Hezbollah fired dozens of missiles at northern Israel in the hours before the meetings on Saturday, in response to the killing of a top Hamas leader in Lebanon’s capital. One of the most intense days of cross-border fighting in recent weeks took place when Israel responded.
Meanwhile, stepped-up attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have disrupted international trade and led to increased efforts by the U.S. and its allies to patrol the vital commercial waterway and respond to threats. The coalition of countries sent a final warning to the Iran-aligned Houthis on Wednesday, saying that they would face military action if they continued their attacks on vessels. In response to the Israel-Hamas war, the militants have carried out at least two dozen attacks.
The War Between the U.S. and the Emirates: The Israel War on the Path to a Palestinian State and its Implications for the Security of the Middle East
The Biden administration has insisted that Israel help forge a realistic path to a Palestinian state, arguing that Israel’s yearslong security policy on the Palestinians appears to have failed, as seen by the scale of the deadly Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7. Establishing a Palestinian state is a longstanding policy goal of the United States, but efforts toward achieving it had ebbed since the Obama administration.
The New York Times reported in September that weapons were received by the Rapid support forces in Sudan through a military air base in Chad, and were bringing the weapons into the country. Mr. Blinken said in December that the two warring armies and associated militias in Sudan were all committing war crimes.
The Emirates is one of the biggest buyers of American arms and is viewed by the U.S. government as a security partner, but the country and the Biden administration are at odds over several major security issues, including the Emirates’ role in the Sudan war and its efforts to forge important military and economic partnerships with China.