U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is trying to build support among Israel’s Middle Eastern neighbors to plan a postwar future for Gaza, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu rejected the U.S.’s calls for a humanitarian pause.
Arab leaders decrying the deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians in the Israel-Hamas war pushed for an immediate cease-fire on Saturday, even as Blinken warned that such a move would be counterproductive and could encourage more violence by the militant group. Blinken held talks Saturday afternoon with Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi, Qatari and Emirati diplomats and a senior Palestinian official.
Earlier Saturday, Blinken visited Lebanon, which hosts Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite Islamist militant group that has seen mounting tensions with Israel on the border with Lebanon, the Associated Press reported. Hezbollah’s leader on Friday threw his backing behind Palestinian militants in Gaza in his first major speech since the Hamas attacks.
Blinken thanked Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati for his leadership “in preventing Lebanon from being pulled into a war that the Lebanese people do not want,” the U.S. State Department said.
All other officials that Blinken met with — including foreign ministers of Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the chair of the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee — have condemned Israel’s tactics against Hamas and the unlawful punishment of the Palestinians. In Beirut, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told reporters that Blinken “should stop the aggression and should not come up with ideas that cannot be implemented.”
Blinken is set to travel to Turkey on Sunday to meet with President Recep Tayyep Erdoğan and top officials on Monday, the State Department said. Erdoğan said on Saturday that he is breaking contact with Netanyahu but is not cutting relations with Israel over Gaza, after Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel for consultations over Israel’s sustained bombing of civilians in the Gaza Strip.
“Netanyahu is no longer someone we can talk to. We have written him off,” Erdoğan was quoted as saying by Turkish media on Friday. “Complete disconnection is not possible, especially in international diplomacy,” Erdogan said. “But Netanyahu bears the main responsibility for the violence. What he needs to do is take a step back and stop it.”
Erdogan also said that Gaza must be part of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state once the Israel-Hamas war is over, and Ankara will not support any plans “gradually erasing Palestinians” from history. Erdoğan repeated his criticism of Western countries for their support of Israel, saying Ankara’s trust in the European Union was “deeply shaken,” Reuters reported.
“Once all of this that is happening is finished, we want to see Gaza as a peaceful region that is a part of an independent Palestinian state, in line with 1967 borders, with territorial integrity, and with East Jerusalem as its capital,” Erdogan was quoted as saying on Saturday.
The Turkish leader also said that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi would visit Turkey at the end of November, and that he would attend an Organization for Islamic Cooperation summit in Riyadh this month to discuss a cease-fire in Gaza, according to a Reuters report.
Erdoğan said Turkey would support any initiatives to ensure that Israel is held accountable for what he described as war crimes and human rights violations, and that a failure to do so would erode trust in the global system.
