News 18-09-2024

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Cairo on Wednesday to try to salvage efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza that have been further complicated by a wave of deadly blasts targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon.

On his 10th trip to the Middle East since the start of the war in Gaza nearly a year ago, Blinken met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and was expected to hold a press conference with Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.

He is not scheduled to visit other Arab capitals or Israel.

According to the US State Department, the objective of his visit was to address negotiation efforts with Egyptian officials.

US officials said privately that they did not expect any breakthroughs at Wednesday’s talks in Cairo, though Blinken would seek to keep up the pressure for a deal between Israel and Hamas.

“He’ll be meeting with Egyptian officials about a number of things, but squarely on the agenda is how we get a proposal that we think would secure agreement from both parties,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller on Tuesday.

Miller declined to “put a timetable on when we would put that proposal forward,” saying Washington wanted “a proposal that’s going to get a yes.”

“It’s very important that we… stop the haggling back and forth.”

US sources say there are two key sticking points in the negotiations: the Philadelphi corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border that Israel is refusing to withdraw from, and the details surrounding the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel after Hamas made fresh demands.

US military aid

Blinken arrived in Cairo after hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded almost simultaneously across Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least nine people and wounding 2,800 others, in blasts the Iran-backed militant group blamed on Israel.

Israel has not commented on the blasts.

Hours before the attack, it said it was broadening the aims of the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attacks to include its fight against Hezbollah.

In Cairo, Blinken is also expected to discuss strengthening US-Egyptian relations.

Egypt is frequently accused of human rights abuses but remains a strategic US partner, and last week Washington decided to release $1.3 billion of military aid without attaching rights conditions, unlike in 2023.

After Cairo, Blinken is due to head to Paris to brief his French, British and Italian counterparts.