During his brief, unannounced visit to Baghdad, the US Secretary of State was asked by my colleague Anthony Zurcher why he had not yet been able to secure Israeli agreement for a humanitarian pause in Gaza.
Antony Blinken said it was a “process” and that Israel had raised important questions about how such pauses would work.
These, he said, were being worked through.
One of Israel’s main concerns is the fate of around 240 hostages – Israelis and foreigners – still being held in Gaza (although Hamas claims that as many as 60 have already been killed in Israeli airstrikes).
Humanitarian pauses, Blinken said, needed to improve the chances of getting hostages released.
Earlier, Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel could not agree to a pause without some sign of movement on the hostage issue. This might include letting the International Committee of the Red Cross visit the captives, something Hamas has not yet agreed to.
But while Israel’s focus is on the fate of the hostages, the US administration is acutely conscious that with each day that passes without some respite from Israel’s military assault, Gaza’s desperate humanitarian situation just gets worse.
Blinken said that 100 trucks a day were now entering Gaza through the Rafah crossing, but he said this was “grossly insufficient”.
