AMMAN/DOHA: Jordan’s king urged the top United States diplomat on Sunday to push for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and an end to the humanitarian crisis brought by three months of war, the royal palace said. King Abdullah II made the remarks to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is on a Middle East tour aiming to ensure the Zionist-Hamas war does not spread.

Blinken was also visiting Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on Sunday. A source with knowledge of the visit said that “negotiations between the Qataris with (the Zionist entity) and Hamas regarding the release of hostages in Gaza are ongoing, although recent events have naturally impacted the atmosphere surrounding the talks”.

King Abdullah warned Blinken against “the catastrophic repercussions of continuation of the aggression against Gaza, underlining the necessity of ending the tragic humanitarian crisis” there, a statement from the royal palace said. The king reiterated “the important role of the United States in bringing pressure for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, protection of civilians, and guaranteeing delivery” of medical and humanitarian aid.

Washington has twice exercised its veto at the United Nations Security Council over ceasefire calls, drawing outrage in the Arab world, and Blinken has bypassed Congress to rush weapons to the Zionist entity. He and other US officials have, however, become increasingly vocal about the need for the Zionist entity to protect civilians in Gaza, where 22,835 people have been killed since Oct 7.

Blinken, who is seeking to get more aid into besieged Gaza, visited the World Food Program’s regional coordination warehouse near the Jordanian capital. Inside the warehouse, stocked with pallets of canned food aid, the senior UN official in Jordan, Sheri Ritsema-Anderson, described the situation in Gaza as unlike anything she had seen during 15 years in the Middle East. It is “catastrophic,” she told reporters.

Blinken said “it is imperative that we maximize assistance to people in need”, by getting the aid in and distributing it effectively. “We’ll be working on that as well in the days to come,” he said at the warehouse. King Abdullah, whose country signed a peace treaty with the Zionist entity in 1994, also reaffirmed the need for a two-state solution to the Zionist-Palestinian question and underlined Jordan’s “total rejection” of any forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Washington also insists on a two-state solution, something rejected by Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, some of whose cabinet members have called for Palestinian inhabitants of Gaza to leave. Regional tensions have soared since Tuesday when a strike in a Beirut stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, a Hamas ally, killed Hamas’ deputy leader Saleh Al-Aruri. A US Defense Department official has told AFP that the Zionist entity carried out the strike.

Blinken arrived in Jordan from Turkey and Greece, where he said there is “real concern” over the Zionist-Lebanon border, which even before the Aruri strike had seen regular exchanges of fire largely between Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, and Zionist forces. “We want to do everything possible to make sure that we don’t see escalation there” and to avoid an “endless cycle of violence”, Blinken said.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell carried a similar message on a visit to Beirut Saturday. “It is imperative to avoid regional escalation in the Middle East. It is absolutely necessary to avoid Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict,” Borrell said. - AFP