Blinken says path to Palestinian state can isolate Iran

Offering a pathway to a Palestinian state is the best way to stabilise the wider region and isolate Iran and its proxies, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday, as he ended a frenetic regional tour over the Gaza war in Cairo.

Shuttling between Israel and Arab states, Blinken has been pushing for a way forward from the bloodshed in Gaza, even as the conflict threatens to spread further to Lebanon, Iraq and Red Sea shipping lanes.

Speaking to reporters after meeting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Blinken said the region faced two paths, the first of which would see "Israel integrated, with security assurances and commitments from regional countries and as well from the United States, and a Palestinian state - at least a pathway to get to that state".

"The other path is to continue to see the terrorism, the nihilism, the destruction by Hamas, by the Houthis, by Hezbollah, all backed by Iran," he said.

"If you pursue the first path … that's the single best way to isolate, to marginalise Iran and the proxies that are making so much trouble - for us and for pretty much everyone else in the region."

Blinken's visit came a day after Egypt and Jordan warned that Israel's military campaign, which has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians according to Gaza's health ministry, must not displace the strip's 2.3 million people or end in an Israeli occupation.

Israel and its US backers have insisted that this is not Israel's plan, but Egypt has grown alarmed as more Gazans are driven towards its border with the enclave, while Israeli ministers continue to support ethnically cleansing the Palestinian enclave.

Hostage mediation

Egypt along with Qatar has been trying to mediate between Hamas and Israel to broker a ceasefire and secure the release of Israeli hostages, as well as pushing for more aid to be delivered into southern Gaza.

Blinken was briefed on those efforts during his meeting with Sisi and Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, according to a statement from Sisi's office. Both sides stated their rejection of any displacement of Palestinians from their lands, the statement said.

Blinken told NBC in an interview on Tuesday that he was hopeful Hamas would engage in ongoing negotiations over the release of hostages, after a deal that saw fighting paused in late November and more than 100 hostages released expired.

Blinken, who has visited nine countries and the occupied West Bank in a week, brought a rough agreement to Israel that its Muslim-majority neighbors would help rehabilitate Gaza after the war and continue economic integration with Israel, but only if Israel commits to eventually allowing the creation of an independent Palestinian state. This is something that Tel Aviv opposes. 

That state would incorporate Gaza and the West Bank, where Blinken met Abbas in the de facto Palestinian capital of Ramallah on Wednesday.

Washington wants the unpopular Palestinian Authority to undertake reforms and regain credibility in order to take charge of Gaza if and when Israel achieves its goal of eliminating Hamas, which has run the strip since 2007.

(Reuters)