Blinken says Israel should end Gaza war

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is urging Israel to allow displaced Palestinians and aid back into Gaza and says it should end the war against Hamas now that it’s achieved its main security aims.

“The situation is so difficult and so dramatic that to fully redress it, to fully answer the needs of people, the best way to do that is to end the war,” Blinken told reporters in Brussels on Wednesday.

He said that Israel has accomplished its goals of dismantling the military wing of Hamas and ensuring that an attack like the one the militant group launched on Oct. 7 last year cannot happen again.

“Israel, by the standards it set itself, has accomplished the strategic goals it set for itself,” Blinken said. “So this should be a time to end the war.”

He said that hundreds of aid trucks in Gaza are unable to distribute relief supplies due to looting and other crime. “It’s imperative that that be addressed. Israel has responsibilities to do that. We’re also working with Egypt,” he said.

Blinken called for “real and extended pauses” in the fighting in much of Gaza “so that the assistance can effectively get to people who need it.”

"We need to see real and extended pauses in large areas of Gaza, pauses in any fighting, any combat, so that the assistance can effectively get to people who need it," Blinken told reporters, adding that Israel was taking steps to address the dire humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory.