The moment Blinken arrives in Tel Aviv (French)
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken arrived in Israel on Friday, his third and final stop on his sixth tour in the region since the start of the war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, to hold an expectedly tense meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Blinken, coming from Cairo and before that Riyadh, is expected to stress the urgent need to increase humanitarian aid entering the besieged Strip and to urge Israel to refrain from invading Rafah in the far south of the Gaza Strip, which is crowded with displaced people.
Blinken is scheduled to meet with Israeli officials, in addition to Netanyahu, to discuss efforts to reach an agreement to exchange Israeli and Palestinian prisoners and achieve a prolonged ceasefire in Gaza.
Blinken said during his meetings in Cairo yesterday, Thursday, that working towards an exchange deal is difficult, but it can be reached, he said.
During a press conference with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry, Blinken stressed the necessity of reaching an immediate and sustainable ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Israel holds at least 9,100 Palestinian prisoners in its prisons, while the Palestinian resistance has not disclosed the number of Israeli prisoners detained in Gaza due to difficulties related to counting them as a result of the continued Israeli bombing.
However, Tel Aviv estimates the number of detainees at approximately 240 and 253 detainees, including 3 who were liberated and 105 who were released during an exchange deal last November, while the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) said that about 70 detainees were killed as a result of the ongoing Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu fears pressure
Meanwhile, Israeli Channel 12 quoted sources as saying that Netanyahu is avoiding holding a session of the mini-ministerial council for fear of being exposed to political pressure regarding the exchange deal.
The channel added that a senior Israeli official said that canceling the discussions of the War Cabinet and the Mini-Ministerial Council was unspeakable recklessness, as he put it.
The channel also reported that Netanyahu met yesterday, Thursday, with the head of the Israeli intelligence service (Mossad), David Barnea, who informed him of the developments in the deal, amid tremendous American pressure on the mediators to begin moving more quickly.
This comes as Barnea heads today to Doha to continue indirect negotiations with the Hamas movement, mediated by Qatar and Egypt and with the participation of the United States, to reach a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange deal.
Source: Al Jazeera + agencies