US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday urged top Israeli officials to “capitalize” on the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s death in order to secure the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza and bring the war there to a close – but there is little evidence that either of those aims are within close reach.
A US senior administration official, speaking after “a series of big, productive conversations” in Israel, said the top US diplomat “discussed in detail” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Secretary Yoav Gallant “the ways in which they can capitalize on what is a strategic success already, and some concrete steps that can be taken in between now and then that could effectively do that.”
Blinken was dispatched to the Middle East by President Joe Biden in the wake of the Hamas leader’s killing by the Israeli military last week. Even as US officials urge the Israeli government to make use of the “opportunity” created by Sinwar’s death, they have downplayed the prospect of a quick resumption of long-stalled hostage and ceasefire negotiations.
The Israeli readout of the Netanyahu-Blinken meeting also said that they discussed “the progress of the fighting in Gaza against the Hamas terrorist organization, and the supreme efforts that Israel is making to bring all of the hostages back home” without mentioning any push to bring the overall Gaza conflict to a swift close.
Israeli officials have given no public indication that they plan to soon end the war. Instead, they have continued their military campaign in northern Gaza that has left the area in dire and desperate need of humanitarian aid – a key topic of conversation in Blinken’s hours of meetings in Israel.
The potential for regional conflagration looms large over Blinken’s trip, which will continue on to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday. Israel still has not carried out its expected response to Iran for a ballistic missile attack earlier this month and is continuing its military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The senior administration official on Tuesday acknowledged that the impact of Sinwar’s death on hostage negotiations remains unclear, particularly amid uncertainty about who will succeed him to lead the group that is still believed to be holding dozens of people hostage in Gaza.
“I think the Israelis see that there is a potential opening,” the official said, “to try and restart, or explore what’s possible secure the recent release of hostages,” adding that the Israelis also have questions about who will be making decisions for Hamas going forward.
“That’s something we’re discussing, not just them, but also with, you know, Egyptian and Qatari partners as well. That is something that hopefully we’ll get more clarity on in the days ahead,” the official added.
The official said the Israelis expressed openness to seeing if there are other ideas “that could be put forward that would start to provide some sort of basis for hostage releases,” beyond the framework put forward by the US earlier this year. Though no details were provided about what those alternative ideas might be.
The US will look at whether Sinwar’s death presents an opportunity to revive that framework – “that Sinwar was a primary obstacle to,” the official said – or “is there an opportunity to look at other means of which we can accomplish those same fundamental goals, which are get everybody out, end the conflict, surge humanitarian aid.”
Blinken stressed need to allow more aid into Gaza
The need to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza was a “prominent topic” in Blinken’s meetings in Israel Tuesday, following a letter to the Israeli government last week demanding they improve the situation or potential face restrictions in military aid.
The top US diplomat directly raised questions with Netanyahu about whether the Israeli government was pursuing a policy of intentional starvation and killing the Palestinians who refused to leave northern Gaza – the so-called “General’s plan” reportedly pushed by far-right members of the government, the official said.
During the meeting, Netanyahu and his top advisor Ron Dermer made a “commitment” that it is not their policy, the official said. Blinken urged them to make that clear publicly.
“So if that’s not your policy, then you should make that clear. They said it is absolutely not our policy,” the official said.
The Israeli officials said that the perception that the “General’s plan” is their policy has been “deeply damaging to us,” the official said, adding that the US side urged them to “say that publicly.” But Blinken did not walk away with any commitments that Netanyahu plans to make any statements about this issue.
More broadly, in his meetings with top officials, Blinken “went through in detail” what he laid out in the letter last week.
“We heard more from Minister Gallant about – in detail – since he was one of the recipients of the letter about steps that he is overseeing to be responsive to it, but in both sides, both with the Prime Minister, with Minister (Ron) Dermer and with Minister Gallant, this was a central part of discussion,” the official said.
Notably, neither the Israeli readout of the Netanyahu or Gallant meeting mentioned humanitarian aid. The US senior administration official would not speak to the exclusion of the topic in those readouts.
Blinken “noted that we’ve seen progress in certain areas, but much more needs to be done, and more importantly, needs to be sustained,” the senior administration official said.
The official said the Israelis recognized “the seriousness with which we have expressed our concern about the current situation and are committed to responding to it and acting upon the requests or sort of priorities that we laid out.”
The official claimed that the Israeli officials “committed to us that they are acting upon our requests and doing everything that they can to meet them.”
“We take those commitments seriously. It’s the results that matter,” the official said, noting that the aid situation “has always been complicated.”
“The letter said we expected to see action and sustained action on this within 30 days,” they added. “We are still within that 30-day period. So that is a rough time frame in which we were operating under now and then we will assess, you know, once we get to that point, with the path forward.”
