Netanyahu meets with Blinken in Jerusalem

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on November 30 afternoon at his office in Jerusalem.

It is the fourth time the top U.S. diplomat has visited the Jewish state since the war against Hamas began on Oct. 7, JNS reports.

He is also scheduled to meet with other members of the War Cabinet to discuss a further extension of the ceasefire and ways to free more hostages from the Gaza Strip. The current 24-hour extension expires on Friday morning.

Blinken is also scheduled to visit Ramallah and then attend the U.N.’s COP28 climate conference in Dubai.

He arrived in the region after attending meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday in Brussels and Skopje, North Macedonia, where NATO foreign ministers and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) discussed the situation in Ukraine.

While in Brussels, Blinken dodged a question from a New York Times reporter about the possibility of Israel’s offensive against Hamas not resuming at all.

“We’d like to see the pause extended because what it has enabled first and foremost is hostages being released, coming home, being reunited with their families. It’s also enabled us to surge humanitarian assistance into the people of Gaza, who so desperately need it,” said Blinken. “So its continuation, by definition, means that more hostages would be coming home, more assistance would be getting in.”

The American diplomat then turned to the idea of a two-state solution, which he noted the Biden administration has characterized from the start as “the only path to enduring peace; to enduring security; to the preservation of Israel as a strong, secure, democratic and Jewish state; and Palestinians having their legitimate aspirations for a state and self-determination met.

“The events of Oct. 7 only further confirm that commitment,” he said.

Also Wednesday, Netanyahu said that Israel would resume attacking Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

“There is no way we are not going back to fight to the end,” Netanyahu said. “This is my policy, the entire Cabinet stands behind it, the entire government stands behind it, the soldiers stand behind it, the people stand behind it—this is exactly what we will do.”