The head of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Ismail Haniyeh, called on US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to focus during his visit to the region on ending the aggression against Gaza on the way to ending the occupation.
In a speech addressed to Blinken, Haniyeh said, “We hope that Blinken has drawn lessons from the past three months and realized Washington’s mistakes in its support of the occupation.”
The head of Hamas’s political bureau added, “We hope that the officials of the Arab and Islamic countries” that will meet with Blinken will confirm to Washington that “the stability of our region is linked to the Palestinian issue.”
Haniyeh said, “Thousands of massacres and terrible destruction cannot achieve security or stability unless our people obtain their freedom and their independent, fully sovereign state with Jerusalem as its capital.”
Blinken arrived this Friday evening in Istanbul, his first stop on a tour in the region centered on the war in Gaza.
In addition to Turkey and Greece, Blinken will visit Jordan, Qatar, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, as well as Israel and the West Bank, as part of this fourth tour in the region since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza.
Commenting on this visit, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, “It is not in anyone’s interest, neither Israel, nor the region, nor the world, for this conflict to extend beyond Gaza,” adding that Blinken will discuss steps to avoid escalation, which he did not specify.
“We don’t expect every conversation on this trip to be easy,” Miller told reporters yesterday, Thursday.