Four days after the start of the ceasefire that ended eleven days of clashes between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken leaves for the Middle East on Monday, May 24 .
The head of the American diplomacy will go to Jerusalem, to meet the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gabi Ashkenazi. He will also travel to Ramallah, to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, then to Egypt and Jordan, the State Department said.
“The United States has engaged in active diplomacy to end hostilities and reduce tensions”, said Antony Blinken on Twitter. “Secretary of State Blinken (…) will continue our government’s efforts to reconnect with the Palestinians and their leaders, as well as express our support for them, after years of neglect ”, for his part, said the President of the United States, Joe Biden, in a separate statement.
In the wake of the ceasefire that entered into force on Friday between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in power in the Gaza Strip, after ten days of bombardments and rocket fire, Joe Biden and Antony Blinken assured that the “Two-state solution”, Israeli and Palestinian, was the only one possible.
But their press releases confirming the Secretary of State’s trip do not refer to it among the subjects he must address in the region.
Knife attack on the fourth day of the ceasefire
Separately, two people, including an Israeli soldier, were stabbed on Monday near a light rail station on the edge of the occupied Palestinian area of East Jerusalem by an assailant who was shot dead, told l ‘AFP Micky Rosenfeld, spokesman for the police, without giving, at this stage, more details on his identity.
This attack comes after the ceasefire negotiated by Egypt between Israel and Hamas. The first tensions, which in part led to the escalation of deadly violence between Hamas and the Israeli army in Gaza, had started at the end of April from the nearby neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian families are threatened with death. ‘expulsion.
