The signs were ominous as Antony Blinken began his latest Middle East tour on Friday, January 5. With the Gaza Strip facing a humanitarian catastrophe after three months of war between Israel and Hamas which, according to the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-administered Palestinian enclave, has claimed almost 23,000 lives, the specter of expanding regional conflict further clouded the US Secretary of State's trip. During this tour of a dozen countries – the fourth since the war began on October 7, 2023 – it will be difficult for Blinken to map out a way out of the crisis and a plan for the "day after."
His main priority is to halt the worst-case scenario for the United States – a conflagration on all fronts in support of Hamas, by Iran and its allies within the "Axis of Resistance" against Israel, which would lead to a regional war. Since the end of December 2023, confrontation has intensified in Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq. The conflict in the Gaza Strip "could easily metastasize, causing even more insecurity and even more suffering," warned Blinken from Qatar on Sunday, expressing his determination to "prevent the conflict from spreading" throughout the Middle East.
In Crete on Saturday, after a stopover in Turkey, he expressed particular concern about the risk of escalation on the border between Israel and Lebanon. Clashes have intensified between the Israeli army and Hezbollah since the assassination in Beirut of Saleh Al-Arouri, a senior Hamas official, on January 2, in a strike attributed to Israel. Fulfilling the threats of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah fired more than 60 rockets and missiles against a strategic Israeli base on Mount Meron, 8 kilometers from the border, on Saturday morning.
The Israeli army confirmed on Sunday evening that this air surveillance base, nicknamed "the eyes of the State" for its radars probing Lebanese and Syrian airspace, had suffered significant damage.
Israel responded with strikes against Hezbollah targets, some 30 kilometers from the border. Blinken stressed that it was "very important that Israelis have security in the North," calling for "ways diplomatically to try to defuse that challenge, that tension." He did not have plans for a stopover in Lebanon. It was the EU's head of diplomacy, Josep Borrell, who on Saturday relayed the call for de-escalation there.
This call went unheeded by the Israeli Prime Minister. "I suggest that Hezbollah learn what Hamas has already learned in recent months: No terrorist is immune," Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Sunday. After the strike in its stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut, to attack its forces would be another provocation for Hezbollah. It presented a calculated response on Saturday with the aim of restoring the balance of military deterrence with Israel without risking dragging the already bloodless Lebanon into an all-out war.
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