Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be traveling to the Middle East this week in an effort to reiterate the United States’s relationship with Israel and strengthen the one with Palestinian leaders.
President Joe Biden said on Monday that Blinken will reiterate the administration’s “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security” and that he will “continue” the “efforts to rebuild ties to, and support for, the Palestinian people and leaders, after years of neglect.”
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His itinerary includes visits to Jerusalem, Ramallah, which is in the West Bank, Cairo, and Amman, the capital of Jordan.
The 59-year-old secretary of state reaffirmed the Biden administration’s support for a two-state solution in the Middle East during an interview on ABC News’s This Week on Sunday.
“Ultimately, it is the only way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state and, of course, the only way to give Palestinians the state to which they’re entitled,” Blinken said.
Israel and Hamas, the Gaza-based U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, agreed to a ceasefire on May 20 after 11 days of deadly clashes.
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During the ramped-up time period, more than 200 Palestinians were killed, and about a dozen Israelis lost their lives as Hamas fired thousands of rockets, though a significant majority were intercepted by the Iron Dome, Israel’s missile rocket-intercepting system, according to the New York Times. Israel launched their own strikes, targeting Hamas but killing civilians nonetheless.
Israeli officials took aggressive actions that predated the rocket fire, including the forced eviction of Palestinian families from an East Jerusalem community.
