2023-10-17 00:23:14
US President Joe Biden will travel to Israel on Wednesday for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Biden will reiterate solidarity with Israel and make it clear that “Israel has the right and duty to defend its people once morest Hamas and other terrorists and to prevent future attacks,” said US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Tel Aviv. Iran, meanwhile, threatened preemptive strikes.
The US and Israel have agreed to develop a plan to provide humanitarian aid to the civilian population in the Gaza Strip without favoring Hamas, Blinken said following nine hours of talks with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv. Israel will inform Biden regarding its war goals and strategy and how it intends to minimize the number of civilian casualties in its war effort.
As the White House announced, Biden plans to travel to Jordan on the same day to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Adbel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
On October 7, terrorists acting on behalf of Hamas carried out a massacre of Israeli civilians in border towns and at a music festival. It was the attack with the most casualties in Israeli history. More than 1,400 people died during and in the following days. Palestinian militants also kidnapped more than 200 people that day. Since then, more than 2,800 people have been killed and more than 10,000 injured in fierce counterattacks by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
Many injured people are in hospitals that cannot provide adequate care. The border crossings with Israel and Egypt are closed. Several trucks carrying aid for the Gaza Strip are on their way from Al Arish on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula to the Rafah border crossing, an eyewitness told Archyde.com. The UN also fears the spread of diseases due to a lack of water in the sealed-off Palestinian area. The USA said it had evacuated almost 1,000 US citizens and their relatives from Israel on US State Department charter flights since Friday.
Iran had previously stated that Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip would not be without consequences. “The leaders of the resistance will not allow the Zionist regime to do anything. … All options are open, and we cannot remain indifferent to the war crimes being committed once morest the people of Gaza,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on national television. He warned of pre-emptive strikes by the resistance front. “The Resistance Front is capable of waging a long war once morest the enemy (Israel)… In the coming hours we can expect a preemptive action by the Resistance Front,” he said, without giving details. Iran describes regional countries and forces that oppose Israel and the USA as a “resistance front”. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday that the resistance front once morest Israel was making its own independent decisions.
The media had already speculated regarding the 80-year-old’s trip to Israel. Netanyahu is said to have invited Biden to Israel during a phone call at the weekend. After the devastating terrorist attack by the Islamist Hamas on Israel, Biden spoke to Netanyahu several times, sometimes more than once a day. He also sent his Secretary of State Blinken to Israel and other countries in the region. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was also in Israel for talks.
Biden had repeatedly emphasized that the USA unconditionally stands by Israel. At the same time, he pointed out that the number of civilian casualties must be kept as low as possible. As Israel’s most important ally, the USA supports the country with billions of dollars. Biden had announced that he would request further funding for the country from the US Congress.
The USA absolutely wants to avoid a further escalation of the conflict in the region. Therefore, the USA has deployed several warships to the eastern Mediterranean as a deterrent. These include, among others, the aircraft carriers “USS Dwight D. Eisenhower” and “USS Gerald R. Ford”. Air Force squadrons with their fighter jets were also sent to the region. The White House recently emphasized that it had no plans to send ground troops to Israel.
Media reported that the US was putting troops on operational readiness. Around 2,000 soldiers are currently preparing for a possible deployment to support Israel, reports the Wall Street Journal, CNN and NBC News, among others, citing unnamed sources from the US Department of Defense. There was initially no official confirmation of this. According to the reports, the soldiers might take on tasks in the logistical or medical areas. They are not intended for combat missions, reported the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke by phone before his trip to Egypt and Israel. Scholz is traveling to the region on Tuesday. Biden also spoke to Egyptian President Sisi, the US presidential office said. It was regarding the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
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