After meeting Palestinian president, Blinken to make surprise visit to Bahrain, says US official

In the latest leg of his crisis tour of the Middle East, US top diplomat Antony Blinken will make a surprise visit to Bahrain on Wednesday after meeting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, a State Department official said. “After meeting President Abbas in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, Blinken will fly to Bahrain, home base of the US Fifth Fleet, for talks with King Hamad on preventing a regional escalation of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza,” the official added. The Gulf kingdom is a key partner of Washington and hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet. Bahrain last month joined a 10-country naval task force announced by the United States to protect the vital Red Sea shipping route against missile and drone attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels. The Huthis say they have been targeting “Israeli-linked” vessels in solidarity with Gaza in a campaign that has prompted many shipping firms to reroute their vessels with knock-on effects for the world economy. Blinken is on his fouth Middle East tour since war broke out with the deadly October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. The US top diplomat said Tuesday that the war had exacted “far too high” a toll among civilians in Gaza, particularly children, and called for more food and medical aid to be delivered to the territory. Meanwhile, Israel kept bombing Gaza on Wednesday as Blinken met the head of the Palestinian Authority, which Washington hopes could govern the coastal territory after the war ends.

As the US secretary of state arrived under tight security in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, protesters held up signs that read “Stop the genocide”, “Free Palestine” and “Blinken out”. Blinken then met Abbas, who was later set to discuss a “push for an immediate ceasefire” in talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the Red Sea port city of Aqaba. Israel’s relentless offensive has killed 23,200 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. It follows the Hamas attacks which resulted in about 1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

With inputs from agencies