US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Sunday with Jordan’s king and foreign minister and visited a World Food Program warehouse in Amman as he pressed ahead with an urgent Middle East diplomatic mission to prevent the war between Israel and the Hamas terror group in Gaza from spreading.
On his fourth visit to the region in three months, Blinken stressed the need for Israel to adjust its military operations to reduce civilian casualties and significantly boost the amount of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza, while highlighting the importance of preparing detailed plans for the post-conflict future of the territory.
War erupted in Gaza after Hamas’s murderous October 7 onslaught, in which thousands of terrorists invaded southern Israel and killed approximately 1,200 people and took another around 240 hostage to Gaza — where more than 100 are still being held captive.
In response, the IDF launched a war against Hamas, vowing to destroy the terror group. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says at least 22,700 people have been killed in the Strip so far, a figure which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants and includes Palestinians killed by errant rocket fire from Gaza.
Blinken met Sunday with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi seeking buy-in for US efforts to tamp down resurgent fears that the three-month-old war could engulf the region, as well as to ramp up aid deliveries to Gaza and prepare for the eventual end of hostilities.
Jordan and other Arab states have been highly critical of Israel’s actions and have eschewed public support for long-term planning, arguing that the fighting must end before such discussions can begin. They have been demanding an immediate ceasefire since mid-October.
Israel has refused and the US has instead called for specified temporary “humanitarian pauses” to allow aid to get in and people to get to safety.
Blinken also toured the World Food Program’s Regional Coordination warehouse in the Jordanian capital where trucks are being packed with aid to be delivered to Gaza through the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings.
The US has been pressing Israel for weeks to let greater amounts of food, water, fuel, medicine and other supplies into Gaza, and the UN Security Council passed a resolution on December 22 calling for an immediate increase in deliveries. Three weeks ago, Israel opened Kerem Shalom, adding a second entry point for aid into Gaza after Rafah.
Still, the rate of trucks entering has not risen significantly. This week, an average of around 120 trucks a day entered through Rafah and Kerem Shalom, according to UN figures, far below the 500 trucks of goods going in daily before the war and far below what aid groups say is needed.
Almost the entire population of 2.3 million depends on the trucks coming across the border for their survival. One in four Palestinians in Gaza is starving, and the rest face crisis levels of hunger, according to the UN
More than 85% of people in Gaza have been driven from their homes by the war. Most live in UN shelters crowded beyond their capacity, in tent camps that have sprung up, or on the streets. The few functioning hospitals are overwhelmed with the wounded as well as patients amid outbreaks of disease, as sanitation systems have collapsed.
Blinken’s visit comes as developments in Lebanon, northern Israel, the Red Sea and Iraq have put intense strains on what had been a modestly successful US push to prevent a regional conflagration since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, and as international criticism of Israel’s military campaign mounts.
From Jordan, Blinken will travel to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on Sunday and Saudi Arabia on Monday. He will then visit Israel and the West Bank on Tuesday and Wednesday before wrapping up the trip in Egypt.