Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday in the first big U.S. push for a Middle East ceasefire since Israel killed the leader of Hamas last week - and the last attempt before a presidential election that could upend U.S. policy. The two men met for 2.5 hours before the secretary met with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
(Photo: U.S. Embassy Jerusalem)
The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said Netanyahu told Blinken that there was a need for a security and political change in Lebanon that would allow displaced Israelis to return safely to their homes. "The meeting was friendly and productive," the PMO said. According to Netanyahu's office the men discussed the threat from Iran and the need of Israel and the United States to unite forces to confront it. the PMO also said that Blinken "expressed the US's deep shock over the Iranian attempt, via Hezbollah, to eliminate the Prime Minister of Israel, and made it clear that this was an exceptionally extreme incident."
Families of hostages demonstrated outside Blinken's Tel Aviv hotel in the evening hours blocking roads and calling for the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza for over a year, to be released.
Blinken began his meetings in Israel as Hezbollah launched rockets into Tel Aviv and Haifa and Israeli air strikes targeted parts of Beirut's southern suburbs, including an air strike that caused a multi-story building to entirely collapse and sent a fresh wave of panicked residents fleeing. This was the secretary's 11th trip to the region since the Hamas massacre last October 7 and the start of the ensuing war.
Washington hopes the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar - Israel's most wanted man, blamed for triggering the year of warfare by planning the deadly attack on Oct. 7 last year on Israeli territory - will provide a new opportunity for peace.
But Israel has so far shown no sign of relenting in its military campaigns even after assassinating several leaders of Iran's allies Hamas and Hezbollah, which lost its powerful secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah in a Sept. 27 airstrike.
Blinken was meeting Netanyahu and other officials at the start of a week-long trip that will also take him to Jordan and Qatar. U.S. officials say he is exploring plans for rebuilding and governing Gaza after the war, key to reaching a ceasefire.
Iran and its allies - Lebanon's Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis, armed groups in Iraq and Hamas in Gaza - have said that their "Axis of Resistance" against Israeli and U.S. interests will emerge victorious.
The Houthis said on Tuesday they had targeted an Israeli military base in Tel Aviv using ballistic missiles in solidarity with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.