US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit the Middle East this week, US media reported.
The secretary of state will travel to Saudi Arabia and Egypt and meet with senior leaders from both countries. He plans to discuss with Saudi and Egyptian officials the provision of more humanitarian aid to Gaza as well as post-war planning for the enclave. He will travel to Jeddah on Wednesday and then fly to Cairo.
It will be Blinken’s sixth trip to the Middle East since the war between Israel and Hamas began on 7 October. Washington has been pushing for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza to free hostages kidnapped by the Palestinian group.
The war began on 7 October when Hamas launched a surprise attack from the Gaza Strip that killed about 1,160 people in Israel. Hamas militants have also taken about 250 Israeli and foreign hostages, of whom Israel believes about 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 presumed dead.
Israel has waged a relentless campaign of bombings and ground offensives that have killed at least 31,726 people, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The United Nations has been warning for weeks that famine is looming in Gaza, and humanitarian organisations have reported enormous difficulties in accessing the territory, particularly in the north of the region.
