WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Israel on Tuesday to maximize “every possible means” to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza, saying the current situation in the densely populated enclave was unacceptable and unsustainable.
Speaking before his meeting with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani at the State Department, the top U.S. diplomat also said there was an opportunity right now to achieve an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war but that the onus was on the Palestinian militant group to engage in those talks.
“Israel has to maximize every possible means, every possible methods of getting assistance to people who need it,” Blinken said, and reiterated the Biden administration’s call that Israel open new border crossings to allow more humanitarian aid to go in, something that country has been resisting.
“It requires more crossings. That requires more aid getting in. And once that aid is in, it requires making sure it can get to the people who need it. So we will continue to press that every single day because the situation as it stands, is simply unacceptable,” Blinken said.
Famine is now looming over the besieged Gaza Strip as aid supplies, already sharply curtailed since the start of the war, have dwindled to barely a trickle over the past month. Whole swaths of the territory are completely cut off from food. Gaza’s few functioning hospitals, already overwhelmed by the wounded, are now filling with children starving to death.
Blinken’s comments came as ceasefire talks in Cairo, billed as a final hurdle to reach a 40-day truce in the war between Hamas and Israel in time for the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, continued, but with no clear breakthrough.
“We have an opportunity for an immediate ceasefire that can bring hostages home, that can dramatically increase the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Palestinians who so desperately need it. … It is on Hamas to make decisions about whether it is prepared to engage in that ceasefire,” Blinken said.
“Qatar, the United States and our partners will be always persistent to make sure that this deal happens,” said Sheikh Mohammed, standing next to Blinken.
The sheikh, who is also the Qatari foreign minister, is visiting Washington for the latest round of U.S.-Qatar Strategic Dialogue, a comprehensive mechanism of talks during which the two sides will discuss their military, economic and political ties.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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