Antony Blinken in the Middle East to negotiate a truce and the release of hostages

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince on Monday, at the start of his fifth visit to the Middle East since the outbreak of the Gaza war, hoping to advancing a possible ceasefire agreement and post-war planning, while easing regional tensions.

But on all three fronts it faces major challenges: Hamas and Israel are publicly at odds over key elements of a possible truce. Israel has rejected U.S. calls for Palestinian statehood, and Iran-linked militias and groups in the region show little sign of appeasement after the American strikes of recent days.

In Gaza, meanwhile, Hamas began reemerging in some of the most devastated areas after Israeli forces withdrew, indicating that Israel’s primary goal of crushing the group remains elusive. Videos taken from these same areas show widespread destruction, with almost every building damaged or destroyed.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the army would continue operations in the northern Gaza Strip for many months and would continue its main offensive in the south, where it is engaged in violent fighting for weeks, until she “full power” throughout the country.

He added that the offensive would eventually reach the town of Rafah on the Egyptian border, where some 1.5 million displaced Palestinians have sought refuge. Egypt has said an Israeli deployment along the border would threaten the peace treaty the two countries signed more than four decades ago.

Antony Blinken met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman shortly after arriving in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Saudi officials said the kingdom was still seeking normalization of relations with Israel in a potentially historic deal, in exchange for a credible plan to create a Palestinian state.

Antony Blinkenstressed the importance of responding to humanitarian needs in Gaza and preventing the conflict from spreading further“, and he and the crown prince discussed “the importance of building a more integrated and prosperous region,” the State Department said in a statement.

But such an agreement still seems far away, because the war still rages in Gaza, where 27,478 people have been killed in nearly four months of war according to the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian enclave controlled by Hamas. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but says most of the dead are women and children. The war razed large areas of the small enclave, displaced 85% of its population from 2.3 million Palestinians and pushed a quarter of residents into famine.