Blinken calls on ‘all parties’ in Middle East to ‘stop escalatory actions’
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has urged “all parties” in the Middle East to stop “escalatory actions” and achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, after Hamas’s political leader was killed in a strike that Iran blamed on Israel.
Achieving peace “starts with a ceasefire, and to get there, it also first requires all parties to talk [and] to stop taking any escalatory actions,” Blinken told reporters in Mongolia.
That includes yourself and the USA mr. Blinken.
US spy plane spotted off Syria, Lebanon, Israel
The flight-tracking service FlightRadar24 has documented a US Navy reconnaissance plane flying off the coasts of Syria, Lebanon and Israel for more than four hours after the Israeli attack on Beirut and the assassination in Tehran escalated tensions in the region.
The navigational data verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency, Sanad, showed the EP-3E Aries II Orion arriving on the coast of Israel at about 10am (07:00 GMT) from Chania airport on the Greek island of Crete.
The aircraft gathers tactical intelligence and makes it available to commanders almost instantly.
Blinken playing ‘children’s game’ with calls for Gaza ceasefire
Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, has told Al Jazeera from Tel Aviv that the recent call for a Gaza ceasefire by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken were “empty words”.
“If Blinken and the US administration would have liked this war to be over, this war would be over,” he said. “Continuing to supply Israel with weapons and to beg Israel to stop the war is quite a farce. This is not international relations, this is a children’s game.”
Levy also said Netanyahu did not want to end the war, and that was the reason behind the assassinations in Tehran and Beirut.
Speaking about the Israeli public mood, he said there was no panic about the possible response from Iran and Lebanon against Israel “even though maybe there is a reason for panic”.
“Israelis are very cautious. There are reports of more Israelis buying more products and preparing themselves, but it’s not a big wave of running to the shops and taking everything,” he said. “People think that we are facing the unknown.”
