Middle East is now as dangerous as it's been in decades, US secretary of state says
The environment in the Middle East is as dangerous as it’s been in the region “since at least 1973, and arguably even before that," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said while emphasizing the US effort to prevent escalation. Blinken, who was speaking at a news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, said that the US response to Iran-backed militias allegedly killing three US Army reservists in Jordan “could be multileveled, come in stages and be sustained over time.”
“We want to prevent this conflict from spreading, so we are intent on doing both, that is standing up for our people when they're attacked, while at the same time working every single day to prevent the conflict from growing and spreading,” said Blinken.
On the war in Gaza, the US top diplomat also said that he discussed the “ongoing efforts” to free Israeli hostages and create an “extended pause” in fighting in the enclave during his meeting with Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on Monday.
Maybe stop escalating the situation by providing weapons and diplomatic cover for genocide?
(In 1973, the war known to Israelis as Yom Kippur and to Arabs as the October War started when Egypt and Syria launched a two-front attack on Israel to regain their territories lost in the 1967 Six Day War, when Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt and Syria’s Golan Heights. Egypt regained control of Sinai but Syria’s Golan Heights remains occupied by Israel)
Israeli forces will ‘go into action’ soon at Lebanon border: Minister
Israeli soldiers will be moved from Israel’s frontier with Gaza and redeployed to its northern border with Lebanon amid soaring tensions with Hezbollah, the country’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said. "They will very soon go into action… so the forces in the north are reinforced,” Gallant told soldiers on Monday night. “The forces close to you… are leaving the field and moving towards the north, and preparing for what comes next.”
Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged almost daily fire over the Lebanon border since October 7, with fears growing over the potential for a new front to the conflict opening up. On Monday, the Iran-backed group claimed at least 12 attacks on Israeli military positions, while Israel said it had carried out air strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Earlier this month, Israel’s army chief of staff Herzi Halevi said the likelihood of a war breaking out in the north in the coming months was “much higher than it was in the past”.
New Zealand on Tuesday became the latest country to suspend funding for the UN Palestinian refugee agency.
UNRWA ‘cannot be replaced’, say 21 humanitarian aid organisations
Twenty-one aid organisations – including ActionAid, Oxfam and Save the Children – have issued a joint statement in support of the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA.
“We are outraged that some donors have united to suspend funding for UNRWA … amid a rapidly worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” the organisations said. “UNRWA is the largest humanitarian agency in Gaza and their delivery of humanitarian assistance cannot be replaced by other agencies working in Gaza,” the organisations, many of which also provide humanitarian assistance in the besieged Palestinian enclave, wrote.
Some “152 UNRWA staff have already been killed and 145 UNRWA facilities damaged by bombardment”, since October, the organisations also noted.
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