In the past two months, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has visited Israel three times, and he started his fourth trip on the 30th of last month. However, the day after his arrival in Israel, the temporary ceasefire agreement in Baha' expired and was annulled, and the Israeli army immediately launched a large-scale air strike on Gaza, killing 14 people in just two hours.
As before, Blinken's fourth trip to Israel was also for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Based on the information reported by Israel**, he touched on four key topics during his trip. First, the United States will still support Israel. The implication is that the United States has no objection to the continuation of the Israeli army's fighting in Gaza, and will help Israel block some of the pressure from the outside world.
Then, the Israeli army ran out of time to fight in Gaza. Previously, Israel had believed that it had ample time to fight to eliminate the threat posed by Hamas at its source. However, in his conversation with Israel, Blinken stressed that the Israeli army only has a few weeks left to eliminate Hamas. The reason is that the United States and Israel are currently under great international pressure, and if the Israeli military is as unscrupulous as before, sooner or later they will not be able to bear it. In addition, if the war drags on for too long, Israel may lose external support, mainly from Western countries and their allies. Blinken reminded the Israeli army that there are only a few weeks left, hoping for a quick victory.
Second, try not to harm civilians. As mentioned earlier, the Israeli army has no scruples about fighting in Gaza, which has resulted in a large number of personnel**. In this regard, Blinken pointed out that the Israeli army must change this practice in order to prevent a large number of civilian incidents in northern Gaza from recurring in southern Gaza. Not only Blinken, but Biden also made the same request to Israel a few days ago, that is, to carry out precision strikes as much as possible to avoid blowing up humanitarian and critical civilian infrastructure, after all, many Palestinian civilians are hiding in these facilities.
However, as far as Blinken's "demands" are concerned, they do not seem to buy it, claiming that they are acting in accordance with the laws of war and have taken steps to prevent civilians. Obviously, with ** is talking nonsense. If the Israeli army really did what he said, how could there be a large number of hospitals bombed in Gaza, and how could there be deaths1More than 50,000 people.
Finally, there is the issue of Gaza governance. At first, the idea of the United States was to hand over the management of the area to the Palestinian authorities after the Israeli army finished its operations in Gaza. However, it was strongly opposed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, because in his view, the Palestinian power structure and Hamas are "inextricably linked". Therefore, in the conversation with Israel, Blinken avoided the matter, but asked Israel to think carefully about the follow-up management of Gaza, at least let the Arab countries next door have a good idea.
In fact, Blinken's concerns are not unfounded, and if the management of Gaza is not handled well, the failure to maintain it will provoke an overreaction from Arab countries. After all, in the eyes of Arab countries, Gaza should be governed by the Palestinians, and if Israel intervenes, these countries will inevitably react out of concern for their own security. In Blinken's view, Israel did not clarify the issue of governing Gaza. The first is that Israel has probably not figured out how to deal with it, and the second is that Israel is busy restarting the war.
In late November, a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect, which was later extended by two days. I thought that this momentum could be extended for a while, but I never thought that the outside world would overestimate the patience of both sides. On the 1st of this month, the day after Blinken arrived in Israel, the ceasefire agreement expired and was annulled, and the Israeli army began to bomb the Gaza area. According to Gaza's health authorities, in just two hours, Israeli forces killed 14 Palestinians and wounded dozens more. Not only that, but the Israeli army has also expanded the scope of bombing, including southern Gaza.
Israel has two reasons for the sudden and massive air strikes on Gaza. The first is to accuse Hamas of being the first to violate the ceasefire agreement, and Israel says that Israeli forces intercepted a rocket one hour before the agreement expired. According to Israel, the rockets came from the Gaza direction. Then, Israel said that a few minutes before the expiration of the agreement, the sound of rockets was heard again in Gaza. As a result, Israel believes that it is Hamas attacking them.
The second is to accuse Hamas of not fully fulfilling its agreement, and the Prime Minister's Office said that Hamas has not released all the women detained in its hands. In short, in Israel's view, all the blame lies with Hamas, which is why Israel chose to bomb Gaza just after the agreement expired.