Blinken to depart for a high-stakes trip to Middle East

US officials, including President Joe Biden, have stressed to their Israeli counterparts to capitalize on the Hamas leaders’ killing to bring the more than year-long conflict to a conclusion. Biden announced last week that he would dispatch his top diplomat to the region with those aims.

Still, questions remain about the impact of Sinwar’s death on the hostage and ceasefire negotiations — discussions that had all but collapsed mere weeks ago — and it remains to be seen whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Hamas is truly prepared to end the war.

“Now is the time to move on — move on, move towards a ceasefire in Gaza, make sure that we move in a direction that we’re going to be in a position to make things better for the whole world,” Biden said he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call last week.

“Today, evil has suffered a heavy blow, but the task before us is not yet complete,” the Israeli PM stated in remarks following Sinwar’s death.

Moreover, the specter of Israel’s response to Iran for Tehran’s missile attack’s earlier this month still looms large, bringing with it the potential for regional conflagration.

That risk of escalation is compounded as Israel has continued its heavy military campaign in Lebanon against Hezbollah.

Blinken plans to “discuss the need to reach a diplomatic resolution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah”, the State Department announced in an announcement about his trip.

Netanyahu’s spokesperson has said that “new ideas” for a captives deal in Gaza were considered during a high-level security cabinet meeting overnight.

“During the meeting, new ideas were brought up to examine their feasibility for a hostage release proposal,” the spokesperson added.

It has been a year since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and about 250 captured and taken to the Gaza Strip. Nearly half the captives have been released. Others are still in captivity with some confirmed or feared dead. Tel Aviv estimates that there are 100 hostages in Gaza.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed more than 42,600 people in its genocide of the Palestinians in the besieged enclave.

The Israeli onslaught has displaced almost the entire population of the territory amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in Gaza.

Mediation efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire and prisoner swap agreement between Israel and Hamas have failed over Netanyahu’s refusal to halt the war.

While cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah continued since the Gaza war last October, Tel Aviv escalated its offensive in Lebanon late last month, killing Hezbollah leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah and many other commanders.

The extensive air attacks, followed by a ground invasion, have killed more than 1,800, injured over 9,300 and displaced around 1.3 million people.