Blinken arrives in Egypt to push for Gaza ceasefire

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Egypt in the early hours of Wednesday, according to AFP.

Blinken has arrived in Egypt to push for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages held by Hamas.

Egypt, along with Qatar, is mediating in talks between Israel and Hamas and the United States is facilitating the peace process. Even though the talks initially appeared to be promising, the talks are now deadlocked over a slew of new demands made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , the main among them being the Israeli control of the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border.

Ahead of Blinken’s visit to Egypt, the US Department of State had said he will meet Egyptian officials to discuss peace negotiations. A meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and a press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty is also on the cards.

“He’ll be meeting with Egyptian officials about a number of things, but squarely on the agenda is how we get a proposal that we think would secure agreement from both parties,” said State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller.

This is Blinken’s 10th visit to the Middle East since the beginning of the war, but it is notable as he will not be visiting Israel this time.

The AFP reported US officials as privately saying that a breakthrough was not expected during the visit and the aim of the visit is to keep up the pressure campaign for a deal between Israel and Hamas.

Blinken’s visit comes at a time when Israel-Hezbollah tensions have also risen and there are indications that Netanyahu may be about to approve a war-like operation against Hezbollah, which has clashed with Israel on a nearly-daily basis with Israel since the beginning of the war with Hamas last year. Several thousands of Israelis in the country’s north remain displaced due to nearly-daily Israel-Hezbollah fighting.

Blinken arrived in Cairo just hours after thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terrorist group backed by Iran, exploded simultaneously, killing close to a dozen people and injuring around 2,700 people . Hezbollah has blamed Israel for the attack and State Department Spokesperson Miller said that the United States was not involved in the matter and was “not aware of this incident in advance”.