before his visit, Antony Blinken calls for “calm”

The American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, called on Monday, January 30 in Cairo, Israelis and Palestinians to ” de-escalation “, shortly before heading to Jerusalem and Ramallah. This visit, planned for a long time, took a different turn with the new spiral of violence. “We call on all parties for calm and to ease tensions”launched Mr. Blinken during a press conference alongside his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Choukri, who pleaded for “a just solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Egypt is regularly called upon to intervene in the Palestinian question: a state neighboring the Gaza Strip and the first Arab country to have signed peace with Israel, it receives Israeli heads of government as well as Palestinian leaders. Again, Cairo assured that “Egypt had made efforts in recent days to try to control the outbreak of tensions”.

The fear of gears

The deaths on the Palestinian and Israeli sides have multiplied in recent days: attacks, shootings, air raids and punitive measures respond to each other despite international calls for restraint. In the wake of anti-Israeli attacks, Binyamin Netanyahu’s government, the most right-wing in Israel’s history, announced measures aimed at punishing those close to the perpetrators of the attacks.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Without a political solution, Israel intensifies repression

On Sunday, Israeli forces sealed off the home of the family of a Palestinian man who killed six Israeli men and a Ukrainian woman on Friday in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian part of the Israeli-occupied Holy City, with a view to destroying it. The home of a Palestinian who injured two Israelis on Saturday, also in East Jerusalem, was also to be sealed. Israeli guards on Sunday killed a Palestinian in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. On Monday, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian in Hebron, in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian authorities.

The anti-Israel attacks came after Israel’s deadliest raid in years in the West Bank with ten Palestinians killed in Jenin, followed by rocket fire from Gaza into Israel and retaliatory Israeli strikes.

Read also: Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a deadly status quo

This violence raises fears of a new spiral and Mr. Blinken must reiterate the American call for restraint on Monday with Mr. Netanyahu and then with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Washington condemned an attack “appalling” in East Jerusalem.

In private, American officials do not hide their frustration with the escalation and impasse in which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict finds itself. According to analysts, Washington is mainly trying to reconnect with Mr. Netanyahu, whose new government is the most right-wing in the history of Israel. Officials have recently succeeded in Jerusalem and some experts are talking about a possible visit by the Israeli Prime Minister to the White House in February.

The World with AFP

source site-29