Israel Hamas War: US Secretary of State reaches Arab country amid war, will adopt new stance on Gaza ceasefire

The Israel-Hamas war is about to be completed in one month, but there is no sign of the war stopping. The Israeli army is continuously carrying out air and ground attacks on Gaza. Meanwhile, the Jordanian Foreign Ministry has said that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet foreign ministers of Middle Eastern countries in Jordan on Saturday and during that time will look into the demand for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

In a statement issued on Friday, the ministry said the foreign ministers of Saudi, Qatar, the Emirates, Egypt, and Jordan, as well as Palestinian representatives, called for an immediate ceasefire, providing humanitarian aid and ending cases that threaten the security of the region. Will emphasize Arab stance over methods."

Israel has attacked Hamas-controlled Gaza in retaliation for the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants. In fact, Hamas had killed 1400 Israelis in their attack and took more than 240 hostages with them. The number of civilian deaths in Gaza has exceeded 9,000 and humanitarian conditions in the enclave have become extremely dire.

Blinken, who arrived in Jordan on Friday after meeting Israeli leaders, said the US is determined that there will be no second or third front in the conflict. He also appealed to Israel to take steps to protect civilians in Gaza.

The statement said Arab ministers would hold a meeting with Blinken ahead of the discussions. King Abdullah told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a phone call on Friday that the international community needed to push for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to protect civilians, the royal court said. King said Israel's military campaign would not succeed and that the only path to lasting peace was to revive negotiations with Israel on an independent Palestinian state.

Jordan is a staunch US ally and shares a border with the West Bank and Israel. Concerned about the possibility of a wider conflict, Amman has also stepped up border security and asked Washington to deploy Patriot air defense systems. King has said he fears the Gaza war could lead to a new displacement of Palestinians into Jordan, an area with a large population of Palestinians displaced in the 1948 war.