Here’s a look at what came out of Blinken’s 11th trip to the Middle East

LONDON — Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s weeklong Middle East trip came to an unexpected end in London on Friday, but the failure to reach a ceasefire for Gaza came as no surprise to U.S. and Arab officials. nightmare.”

The trip to Israel, Qatar and Saudi Arabia was expected after President Joe Biden said this month that he would send Blinken to the region after Israel killed Hamas military chief Yahya Sinwar. A ceasefire proposal that has been languishing for months.

Blinken and other U.S. officials discussed several proposals that could potentially trigger the release of Israeli hostages and end the devastating war in Gaza. This week’s main debate focused more on Palestinian governance, reconstruction, and a post-war plan for the security of the region.

The impact of the war was on full display on Blinken’s last day in Tel Aviv, shortly before he left for the airport on Wednesday, when air raid sirens went off at the hotel where US officials and media were staying. The Israeli army said that two rockets fired from Lebanon to Israel were neutralized and smoke was visible from the hotel.

Here are some takeaways from Blinken’s 11th visit to the Middle East since the Israel-Hamas war began in Gaza a year ago:

Restarting peace talks

Although expectations for an agreement between Israel and Hamas militants are low, America and Israel have announced that US and Israeli negotiators will arrive in Qatar in the coming days to revive talks after no meetings have been held for several weeks.

Qatar has served as an important mediator between Israel and Hamas. Speaking to reporters in Doha, Qatar’s capital, on Thursday, Blinken said negotiators would return to the Gulf city soon.

“What we really need to determine is whether Hamas is ready to engage,” Blinken said. However, Hamas’s political representatives have not signaled a softer stance so far.

“There is no change in our position,” senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told Lebanese broadcaster Al Mayadeen.

Hamdan reiterated that his delegates had received information from mediators in Cairo about the potential for reviving ceasefire talks, but the group still insisted on an end to Israel’s offensive in Gaza and a complete withdrawal from the region.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the head of the country’s spy agency Mossad will travel to Qatar on Sunday to meet with CIA director Bill Burns and Qatar’s prime minister.

We draw red lines

Throughout the trip, the United States questioned aspects of Israel’s handling of the war; It raised concerns about a controversial plan in northern Gaza and forced its ally to comply with US humanitarian law over the inadequate level of aid reaching Palestinians.

Before leaving Tel Aviv, Blinken and other U.S. officials cornered Netanyahu and members of the government on a proposal supported by some Israeli officials that civilians would be ordered to leave the north and anyone remaining would be starved or killed.

A senior State Department official said Tuesday that both Netanyahu and his deputy, Ron Dermer, have denied having a proposal titled “The General’s Plan” and that it is counterproductive that such a perception even exists.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, said the United States responded by imploring the Israelis to go to great lengths to explain publicly that this was not their policy.

At the same meeting, Blinken also raised the issue of aid to Gaza, following a scathing letter he and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently published calling for a solution to the dire situation on the ground for Palestinians.

Blinken laid out a number of areas where the Israelis needed to improve and gave a 30-day window to start seeing progress, according to the official.

Days later in Doha, Blinken announced $135 million in additional US aid to the Palestinians, but again said the aid would be hopeless if it did not reach civilians in need.

Disappointment from Arab partners

This week, many Arab leaders publicly expressed anger at the state of ceasefire negotiations more than a year after the conflict. Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, said he regretted that mediators had come so close to an agreement and then been derailed several times in recent months.

“Every time we got closer to a solution, unfortunately there were many steps back,” he told reporters in Doha on Thursday.

He added that going forward, there would be consequences “if either party refuses to be a constructive part of the negotiations.”

Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi took the issue further, telling Blinken directly at a meeting in London on Friday that the “Israeli government is not listening to anyone” and that the conflict had turned “the region into a nightmare” as a result. We continue to live.”

“The only way to save the region from this is for Israel to stop its attacks on Gaza, Lebanon, and to stop the unilateral illegal measures in the West Bank that are straining the situation,” Safadi said.

running out of time

Many questioned whether the timing of the trip was an 11th-hour effort by the Biden administration to make even modest breakthroughs in the region ahead of the US presidential election.

Instead, Blinken noted that Sinwar’s death provided a much-needed opening for negotiators who had spent the past month trying to get back to the negotiating table.

Discussions around a post-war plan are being pushed by the United States as a way to rebuild goodwill among various stakeholders after two deadly attacks over the summer, including on leaders of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

This is the last time Blinken will be in the area before Election Day in 11 days, and Democrats had hoped for a ceasefire agreement once Americans start voting.

That would have helped alleviate serious criticism from many voters of Vice President Kamala Harris’s handling of the war. Critics say the Biden administration has not gone far enough to deter Israel from waging the war that has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians.

Local health authorities do not distinguish between militants and civilians but say more than half of the deaths were women and children.