By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday met with Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo where discussions centered on ways to move forward in negotiations on a ceasefire in Gaza.
According to the presidency’s disclosure, Sisi warned of the risk of the Gaza war expanding regionally in a way “difficult to imagine”.
“The ceasefire in Gaza must be the beginning of broader international recognition of the Palestinian state and the implementation of the two-state solution, as this is the basic guarantor of stability in the region,” the Egyptian leader added.
Heritage Times HT reports that Blinken arrived in Egypt from Tel Aviv, where he said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had accepted a US “bridging proposal” aimed at narrowing the gaps between the two sides after talks last week paused without success.
He urged Hamas to also accept the proposal as the basis for more talks.
The Palestinian militant group has not definitively rejected the proposal, but has said it backtracks from areas previously agreed and has accused Israel and its US ally of spinning out the negotiations process in bad faith.
In Egypt, Blinken was meeting President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, whose country has been helping mediate the on-off Gaza talks for months along with the US and Qatar.
At stake is the fate of Gaza, where Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 40,000 people since October according to Palestinian health authorities, and of the remaining hostages being held there.
The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas gunmen stormed into Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and abducting about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
