2023-10-16 23:47:00
Joe Biden, who emptied his schedule to focus on the situation in the Middle East, spoke on Monday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, according to the White House.
The Egyptian leader, with whom the United States is negotiating to allow the exit of civilians from Gaza, proposed organizing an international summit on “the future of the Palestinian cause.”
This summit will be held on Saturday, according to Gulf news agencies.
The American president also spoke with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz about the trip that the latter is preparing to make this week to Israel and Egypt, a country which historically acts as a mediator between Palestinians and Israelis.
These conversations by Joe Biden coincide with intense diplomatic activity by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who also spoke with Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, as well as with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Iranian Presidents Ebrahim Raïssi, Syrian Bashar al-Assad and that of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas.
The American president canceled a trip he was to make the same day to Colorado on Monday.
Travel to Israel?
The announcement reignited speculation about a trip to Israel, where Joe Biden was officially invited and where the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken was on Monday.
Joe Biden, who very quickly presented himself as Israel’s first ally, invoking the country’s “duty” to defend itself against the deadly attacks of Hamas, fears that the conflict will spread via a large-scale offensive by Hezbollah in the north, as deadly clashes increase between the pro-Iranian group and the Israeli army on the border with Lebanon.
Campaigning for a second term, the 80-year-old Democrat was to go to Colorado to praise his economic and social policy on the land of a particularly virulent Trumpist elected official.
The American executive had already released language on this trip to the western United States, before announcing at the last minute that it was “postponed” and would be “rescheduled to a new date”.
Several media outlets, including Axios and CNN, assure that the Israeli and American authorities are discussing a possible visit by the president.
This would not be Joe Biden’s first trip to a country in conflict after his trip to Ukraine in February. This historic visit had been prepared in the greatest secrecy.
He also visited Israel in July 2022, when Yaïr Lapid was still Prime Minister.
Relations between the White House and Israel then experienced a chill with the return to power of Benjamin Netanyahu, at the head of a very right-wing government, which Joe Biden openly criticized.
“Humanitarian crisis”
The American president, however, has completely put aside his grievances, at least in public, to present himself as Israel’s leading international supporter.
In recent days, he has also insisted on the need to respond to the “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza.
Israel affirmed Monday that no truce was in progress to allow the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, where a million Palestinians according to the UN were displaced in a week from the north of the territory to the south, fleeing the bombings launched by the Israeli army in response to the bloody offensive by the Palestinian Islamist group.
Diplomatic initiatives increased on Monday to try to prevent a “humanitarian catastrophe” and an spillover of the conflict, on the tenth day of the war triggered by the deadly attack by the Palestinian movement on Israeli soil.
Israeli retaliatory strikes killed at least 2,750 people, mostly Palestinian civilians, including hundreds of children, according to local authorities.
More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel, most of them civilians killed on the day of the attack, the deadliest since the creation of the State of Israel.
16/10/2023 23:46:31 –
Washington (AFP) –
© 2023 AFP
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