Blinken to make another push to defuse conflicts in Middle East

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LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:

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Arab League calls for immediate ceasefire in Lebanon

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Hospitals under fire as Israeli forces deepen operations in northern Gaza

By Humeyra Pamuk and Timour Azhari

WASHINGTON/BEIRUT Oct 21 - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will make another push for a ceasefire when he heads to the Middle East on Monday, the State Department said, seeking to kick-start negotiations to end the Gaza war and also defuse the spillover conflict in Lebanon.

Blinken's latest trip to the region, his eleventh since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas that triggered the Gaza war, comes as Israel has intensified its military campaign in Gaza and in Lebanon against the Iran-aligned Hezbollah militia.

Diplomacy has failed to ease the fighting.

The U.S. is trying to resolve complex interlocked conflicts after Israel raised the stakes by assassinating the leaders of Hezbollah, including its veteran secretary-general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza while showing no sign of reining in its ground and aerial offensives.

Killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week after a year-long search was a major victory for Israel. But its leaders say the war must go on until the Islamist group is eliminated as a military and security threat to Israel.

Iran and its allies have said Sinwar's death in a gunbattle with Israeli soldiers in Gaza will strengthen their resolve.

Israel has a long history of assassinating Hamas leaders which dealt heavy setbacks to the group but did not destroy it.

Blinken will discuss with regional leaders the importance of ending the war in Gaza, ways to chart a post-conflict plan for the Palestinian enclave, as well as how to reach a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the State Department said in a statement.

U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein held talks with Lebanese officials in Beirut on Monday on conditions for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah after Israel struck branches across Lebanon of a financial institution linked to the group.

He said that it was "not enough" for both sides to commit to U.N. resolution 1701, which ended the last round of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in 2006 and which calls for southern Lebanon to be free of any troops or weapons other than those of the Lebanese state.

Hochstein said that neither Hezbollah nor Israel have adequately implemented the resolution, and that while it would be the basis for the end to current hostilities, the U.S. is seeking to determine what more needed to be done to make sure it was implemented "fairly, accurately and transparently."

"We are working with government of Lebanon, the state of Lebanon, as well as the government of Israel to get to a formula that brings an end to this conflict once and for all," he said.

Israel launched a ground campaign over the past month after a year of border clashes touched off by Hezbollah rocket fire into Israel in support of Hamas in Gaza.

"Strike, strike, strike with planes and drones, and we don’t know who they are targeting and who will die each day," said Micheline Jabbour, who works in a Beirut pastry shop.

The Israeli military said before its overnight attacks that it was targeting the Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association, a financial institution with over 30 outlets across Lebanon which the U.S. has said is used by Hezbollah to manage its finances.

There was no immediate statement from the organisation, Hezbollah or the Lebanese government.

The ground outside Al-Qard Al Hassan branch in the city of Tyre in southern Lebanon, which was struck, was strewn with rubble, shattered glass and scattered papers.

Amid the debris was a large yellow poster leaning against the building featuring Nasrallah with a message: "You promised us victory, and we will win."

DESTROY AN IDEA?

Beirut residents were doubtful that Hochstein would succeed.

"I see it dragging on, I see it taking longer. It’s still a play; where are we going? No one knows. Anyone who tells you they know is lying, especially these so-called leaders that appear on TV - they don’t know what they’re saying," said Tony Rawandos, 61, owner of a car workshop.

Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said in Beirut that its priority was to achieve an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, and he called for Israel's prompt withdrawal from any Lebanese territories it has occupied or entered.

Aboul Gheit was also asked if Hezbollah could be destroyed, to which he replied: "You cannot destroy an idea".

Over the past year, Lebanese officials estimate that more than 2,400 people have been killed in the conflict. Fifty-nine people have been killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights over the same period, say Israeli authorities.

Israel's military is also preparing to retaliate for an Iranian missile barrage on Oct. 1 - though Washington has pressed it not to strike Iranian energy facilities or nuclear sites.

Israel's campaign in Lebanon has driven 1.2 million people from their homes. It says its aim is to drive Hezbollah fighters from the border region so tens of thousands of Israelis can return to homes they were forced to flee over the past year due to Hezbollah cross-border fire in solidarity with Palestinians.

In Gaza, Israeli forces besieged hospitals and shelters for displaced people in the north of the enclave on Monday as they stepped up their operations against Palestinian militants, residents and medics said.

Troops rounded up men and ordered women to leave the Jabalia historic refugee camp, they said. An Israeli airstrike on a house in Jabalia killed five people and wounded several others, medics said.

The Israeli military said it was operating against "terrorists and terrorist infrastructure" in the Jabalia area.

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