U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will embark on a five-day trip to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the West Bank on Sunday, the State Department said in a news release.
The visit to the region will be his fifth since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel that killed 1,200 people, according to the department. Blinken will continue efforts to reach a deal to secure the release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas and to implement a pause in the fighting to “allow for sustained, increased delivery of humanitarian assistance” to Gaza civilians, the State Department said.
“I am returning to the Middle East this coming week to continue working with our partners on how to achieve durable peace in the region, with lasting security for Israelis and Palestinians alike,” Blinken wrote on social media.
The visit comes amid a worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people are facing potential famine, according to the United Nations. More than a dozen donor countries including the United States have suspended funding to UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, after Israel accused 12 members of the organization of participating in the Oct. 7 attacks.
Blinken has described the Israeli information on those accusations as “highly credible,” although White House officials have noted that the allegations relate to just a small fraction of the more than 13,000 people UNRWA employs in Gaza. The U.N. agency, meanwhile, has urged countries to resume funding, arguing that more than 2 million Gazans depended on it for their “sheer survival,” and that it had immediately terminated the contracts of the staff identified in the allegations.
LINK: Latest Israel-Hamas war news and Gaza conflict updates – The Washington Post
