US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, announced that the United States had submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council calling for an “immediate ceasefire linked to the release of the hostages” in the Gaza Strip.
Blinken told Al-Hadath channel, on Wednesday, during a visit to Saudi Arabia to discuss efforts to calm the war between Israel and Hamas, “We have already presented a draft resolution, which is now presented before the Security Council, and calls for an immediate ceasefire linked to the release of the hostages, and we very much hope that it will receive support from countries.” “.
He expressed his belief that this project “will send a strong message, with a strong indicator.”
The United States, the most prominent supporter of Israel politically and militarily in this war, had previously used its veto in the Security Council to prevent the issuance of a ceasefire resolution in the Gaza Strip.
Blinken explained, “Of course we stand by Israel and its right to defend itself… but at the same time, it is necessary that we focus on the civilians who are being harmed and suffering horribly, and make them a priority for us,” stressing the necessity of “protecting civilians and delivering humanitarian aid to them.” .
Blinken met in Saudi Arabia with the Crown Prince, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Faisal bin Farhan, and he heads to Egypt on Thursday in the second leg of his sixth tour in the region since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, and he will visit Israel on Friday.
The US minister’s visit comes at a time when Qatar is hosting talks led by mediators Washington, Doha, and Cairo, with the aim of reaching a truce in the fighting, carrying out an exchange between hostages held in the Gaza Strip and Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, and bringing more aid into the besieged Strip, where the majority of the population faces the risk of starvation.
On Wednesday, Hamas said that it had received a “generally negative” response from Israel to its proposal based, in the first stage, on a six-week truce in exchange for the release of hostages and detainees.
The war broke out on October 7 following an attack launched by Hamas on Israeli sites and areas adjacent to the Gaza Strip, killing at least 1,160 people, most of them civilians, according to a tally prepared by Agence France-Presse based on official Israeli figures.
After an exchange that took place in November during a temporary truce that lasted a week, Israel estimates that about 130 hostages are still being held in Gaza, including 33 who are believed to have died, out of about 250 people kidnapped in the Hamas attack.
Israel responded with a concentrated bombing campaign followed by a massive ground attack, killing 31,923 people and wounding 74,096, the majority of them women and children, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
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