Blinken: ‘Tough decisions’ for Israel amid Gaza war
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Israel will have to ask itself if it’s ready to engage on the issue of a two-state solution.
Blinken shared these remarks with a columnist from the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
Fighting has ravaged Gaza since Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel that resulted in the death of about 1,140 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
At least 24,448 Palestinians, about 70 per cent of them women, young children and adolescents, have been killed in Israeli bombardments and ground assaults, according to the Gaza health ministry's latest figures.
Blinken was asked if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the right person to lead the country to a peaceful solution to the war, a question Blinken side-stepped.
"These are decisions for Israelis to make,” he said.
“This is a profound decision for a country as a whole to make. What direction does it want to take? Can it seize the opportunity that we believe is there? They have to make those decisions".
The United States has backed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's call to eradicate Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, but has called for the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank, gradually to take over control in the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu has long denounced the Palestinian Authority and been sceptical of a Palestinian state.
*Additional reporting by AFP
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