Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Thursday as the tenuous truce remains ongoing with an expected expiration.
Blinken, who traveled to Israel for the fourth time since the war broke out on Oct. 7, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli war Cabinet, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, and separately with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.
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His trip comes as Israel and Hamas have continued to extend their temporary truce for another day. The framework for the truce is that every day Israel stops its military campaign and allows for an increased amount of humanitarian aid into Gaza, Hamas will release 10 women and child hostages. Israel also agreed to release three times as many Palestinians currently held in Israeli prisons.
An Israeli military spokesperson said on Wednesday there were 159 hostages still in Gaza, though it's unclear if that's still the most updated figure. Hamas and other Gaza-based terrorist groups took roughly 240 people hostage during the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel.
"The Secretary reaffirmed the United States’ support for Israel’s right to protect itself from terrorist violence in compliance with international humanitarian law and urged Israel to take every possible measure to avoid civilian harm," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a readout of the meeting. "Secretary Blinken and Prime Minister Netanyahu discussed efforts to secure the release of all remaining hostages. They also spoke about the need to accelerate the delivery of critical, life-saving humanitarian assistance to Gaza."
Blinken's visit comes at an important moment with Israel's military preparing for a new phase of the war whenever the truce expires.
Israeli leaders have indicated the new phase will focus on the southern part of Gaza, which has been met with consternation from the Biden administration because Israel already ordered more than a million Palestinians in the north to evacuate to the southern part of the enclave and are still not allowing them to return north, making the south even more populated than normal.
Israel's initial war phases, which focused on the north, resulted in the deaths of thousands of Palestinians and incurred significant international concerns, including from the Biden administration.
"The Secretary stressed the imperative of accounting for humanitarian and civilian protection needs in southern Gaza before any military operations there," Miller said about the Blinken-Netanyahu meeting.
Earlier this week, a senior Biden administration official told reporters that they did not "support [Israel] moving in the south unless or until they can demonstrate a plan that accounts for the additional civilian life that is now in South Gaza and how they're going to try to protect that."
Blinken, this week, has also emphasized the importance of planning for what happens in Gaza once the war is over. Israeli officials have said they intend to remove Hamas from power, though it's unclear who will then lead the enclave, though the secretary has previously suggested Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, even though they are not popular in the West Bank.
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"There are important questions about its governance, its security, its reconstruction," Blinken said on Wednesday. "But also, the day after the day after, which is how do we get on a clear path to meeting the legitimate political aspirations of the Palestinian people, which really, in our judgment, is the only way to durable peace, durable security for everyone, starting with Israel and Israelis."
The administration's position is that lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinian territories will come from a two-state solution. Blinken reiterated that sentiment in his meetings to Israeli leaders and Abbas.