Antony Blinken
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a trip to the Middle East on Monday to press for a Gaza cease-fire.
The senior US diplomat, on his ninth visit to the area since the war began, was scheduled to arrive in Egypt and then go to Israel.
Blinken is set to attend closed-door meetings in Cairo with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a major US partner in peace efforts, and then in Jerusalem with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Blinken scheduled the visit to forward a proposal proposed by President Joe Biden on May 31, who has increased efforts to halt a war that has killed civilians and alienated elements of his constituency ahead of the November elections.
However, Hamas has yet to openly respond to the war, which began with a devastating October 7 attack on Israel, sparking a relentless retaliatory campaign.
While Biden has claimed that his idea originated in Israel, the resignation of a prominent centrist, Benny Gantz, from Netanyahu’s war cabinet on Sunday adds a new wrinkle to US diplomatic efforts.
Gantz, a retired commander who is leading polls to replace Netanyahu if new elections are called, argued that the prime minister had not made the difficult decisions required for real victory such as developing a post-war strategy for Gaza.
Gantz has positioned himself as a more cooperative partner for the United States than Netanyahu, a veteran of political squabbles with Israel’s key ally. In recent weeks, Biden halted a supply of weaponry to Israel and accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war to stay in power, a claim he later reversed.
Gantz bucked Netanyahu by visiting Washington on his own in March, and he has met with Blinken on several occasions in Israel, but the most recent encounter was not immediately disclosed.
