Blinken in Egypt and Israel

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to visit Egypt and Israel as Washington puta pressure on Hamas and Israel to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and avoid a potential war expantion to Lebanon.

In his eighth visit to the region since Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, triggering the war, Antony Blinken will also travel to Jordan and Qatar this week.

Blinken is set to meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo then travel to Israel, where he will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, according to a State Department.

The visit comes after U.S. President Joe Biden on May 31 presented a three-phase ceasefire proposal from Israel that was supposed to lead to a permanent end to hostilities, the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, and the reconstruction of Gaza.

The Hamas attack, last year, killed 1,200 people and took some 250 others hostage, according to Israeli tallies. In response, Israel launched an assault on the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said in an update.

Israeli forces rescued four hostages held by Hamas since October in a raid in Gaza on Saturday, during which 274 Palestinians were killed, according to Gaza’s Hamas led health ministry.

Blinken’s trip comes after Israeli minister Benny Gantz announced his resignation from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s emergency government on Sunday, withdrawing the only centrist power in the coalition dominated by the far-right.

Blinken during the trip this week will discuss with partners the need to reach a ceasefire agreement that secures the release of all hostages, as well as the need to prevent the conflict from escalating further, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement last week.

He will emphasize the importance of Hamas accepting the proposal on the table, Miller added.

Ceasefire talks have intensified since Biden’s speech and CIA director William Burns met senior officials from mediators Qatar and Egypt on Wednesday in Doha to discuss the plan.

Biden has repeatedly declared that ceasefires were close over the past several months, but there has been only one, week-long truce, in November.