Arab leaders publicly pressed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday to secure an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, hours after Palestinians said an Israeli air strike killed at least 15 people in a UN-run school being used as a shelter.
In a rare open display of disagreement, the top US diplomat pushed back as he stood next to his Jordanian and Egyptian counterparts at a news conference, saying a ceasefire would only let Hamas regroup and launch more attacks on Israel.
Blinken met the Saudi, Qatari, Emirati, Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers in Amman four weeks after Hamas fighters burst over the border into Israel, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 240 people hostage.
Israel has since struck Gaza from the air, imposed a siege and launched a ground assault, stirring global alarm at humanitarian conditions in the enclave and, Gaza health officials said yesterday, killing more than 9,488 Palestinians.
“I think we need to get our priorities straight. Right now we have to make sure that this war stops,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told the news conference.
“What happens next – how can we even entertain what will happen in Gaza when we do not know what kind of Gaza will be left, after this war,” Safadi said.
Blinken said all agreed on the need for peace and that the current status quo in Gaza could not hold, but he acknowledged there were differences between Washington, which has called only for pauses to let aid into Gaza, and its allies.
“A ceasefire now would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on October 7,” said Blinken, on his second trip to the region since Israel and Hamas went to war. “No nation, none of us would accept that.”
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said, “The international community’s responsibility is always to seek the cessation of hostilities, not promote the continuance of violence.”
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, stressed the urgent need for a ceasefire in Gaza during a meeting with Blinken in Jordan, Mikati’s office said. Mikati also said “Israeli aggression” in southern Lebanon must stop.
Earlier, Palestinian witnesses said Israel hit Al Fakhoura school in Jabalia, where thousands of evacuees were living, in the morning.
Juliette Touma, director of communication for the UN Palestinian refugee agency, said the UN-run school, which is in the Gaza City area, had been hit.
“At least one strike hit the schoolyard where there were tents for displaced families. Another strike hit inside the school where women were baking bread,” Touma said by phone.
Footage of the aftermath showed broken furniture and other belongings lying on the ground, patches of blood spilled on the ground and over food and people crying. “I was standing here when three bombings happened, I carried a body and another decapitated body with my own hands,” a young boy said, crying in despair. “God will take my vengeance.”
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