Middle East Desk Report
RAMALLAH: Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged on a Middle East mission on Tuesday that Washington would provide new aid to help rebuild Gaza as part of efforts to bolster a ceasefire between its Hamas rulers and Israel.
Hoping to reverse a move taken by former President Donald Trump that angered Palestinians, Blinken said the United States would advance the process of re-opening the Jerusalem consulate that had served as its diplomatic channel to the Palestinians.
Speaking alongside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Blinken said the United States would provide an additional $75 million in development and economic aid to the Palestinians in 2021, $5.5 million in immediate disaster relief for Gaza and $32 million to UN Palestinian aid agency. But Blinken reiterated that Washington intended to ensure that Hamas, did not benefit from the humanitarian aid, a potentially difficult task in an enclave over which it has a strong grip.
Blinken began his regional visit in Jerusalem, where he held talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli leader, speaking to reporters with the top US diplomat at his side, threatened a “very powerful response” if Hamas renewed cross-border rocket strikes. The truce, brokered by Egypt and coordinated with the United States, began on Friday after 11 days of the worst violence by Israel against Palestinians in years. Now in its fifth day, it has been holding.
“We know that to prevent a return to violence we have to use the space created to address a larger set of underlying issues and challenges,” Blinken said.
“And that begins with tackling the grave humanitarian situation in Gaza and starting to rebuild.” Blinken will be in the region through Thursday, and will also travel to Egypt and Jordan. In tandem with his visit, Israeli authorities allowed fuel, medicine and food earmarked for Gaza’s private sector to enter the territory for the first time since the hostilities began on May 10.
Blinken said re-opening the US Consulate General in Jerusalem would be “an important way for our country to engage with and provide support to the Palestinian people”. The Trump administration merged the consulate with the US Embassy in Israel in 2019, two years after recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and later moving the embassy there from Tel Aviv. Those moves broke with long-standing US policy and infuriated Palestinians, who seek East Jerusalem as capital of future state.
Israel deems all of Jerusalem, including the eastern sector it captured in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed in a move not recognised internationally, as its undivided capital. Biden has no plans to reverse the embassy relocation but has moved in the early months of his term to repair relations with Palestinians. In April, Biden restored hundreds of millions of dollars in Palestinian aid cut by Trump.
Speaking alongside Blinken, Abbas thanked the US “for its commitment to the two-state solution (and maintaining) the status quo on the Haram al-Sharif,” a Jerusalem compound holy to Muslims and Jews that contains Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site. Abbas also thanked Blinken for what he called American support “for the preservation of (Palestinian) residents of Sheikh Jarrah,” an East Jerusalem neighbourhood where the potential evictions of Palestinian families helped spark the Israel-Gaza fighting.
