As the final effort before a presidential election that may completely alter U.S. policy, Secretary of State, Antony Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday in the first significant U.S. push for a truce in the Middle East since Israel killed Hamas leader last week.
Mr. Blinken’s discussions in Israel started as Hezbollah fired missiles into Tel Aviv and Haifa and Israeli airstrikes hammered areas of the southern suburbs of Beirut, including one that completely collapsed a multi-story structure and sent a new wave of terrified inhabitants out.
Numerous diplomatic attempts have failed to resolve the year-long battle between Israel and the Iranian-backed military group Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as the fighting that has spilled over into the Palestinian region of Gaza.
On his eleventh visit to the area since the start of the Gaza War, Blinken is faced with a difficult task.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for a drone attack on Netanyahu’s vacation house on Saturday and declared on Tuesday that there would be no talks as long as fighting continued.
Washington expects that a new chance for peace would arise from the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Israel’s most wanted man, who is accused of starting the year of war by organizing the fatal attack on Israeli land on October 7 of last year.
However, Israel has not backed down from its military campaigns to date, even after killing a number of leaders of Iran’s allies, Hamas and Hezbollah, which lost its influential secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike on September 27.
In Gaza on Tuesday, the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA called for a temporary truce to allow civilians to leave areas in the north of the enclave where Israeli forces were hunting down Hamas militants.
Gaza health officials said more than 20 people had been killed by Israeli forces. Dozens of corpses lay on roadsides and under rubble, they said.
Director of Gaza Health Ministry, Munir Al-Bursh, stated that hospitals have run out of coffins to prepare the dead.
