As international pressure mounts to relieve the dire conditions in Gaza, the U.S. secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, met with wary regional officials in Jordan on Saturday, pressing to get more aid into the battered enclave and seeking to contain the war amid rising concern about the potential for a regional conflict.
Mr. Blinken has been appealing for “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting to allow more aid into the territory, and his visit took place a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel appeared to rebuff the American request, saying that any cease-fire would be contingent on the release of more than 200 hostages abducted in the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks that killed at least 1,400 civilians and soldiers.
“The United States supports Israel’s right to defense against Hamas terrorist organization that attacked it brutally and that cares not a whit about the Palestinian people or their future,” Mr. Blinken said at a news conference with the Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers in Amman, Jordan. “Protecting civilians will help prevent Hamas from further exploiting the situation. But most important, it’s simply the right and moral thing to do.”
Acknowledging Egypt and Jordan’s attempts to “facilitate a real peace,” Mr. Blinken said that, now, “when the outlooks seems darkest, that we have to intensify our work, to meet this moment.”
Yet the depth of feeling among the Arab nations was evident in the news conference. Egypt’s foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, called for an “immediate cease-fire” in Gaza without conditions, while Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, bluntly told Mr. Blinken, “Stop this madness.”
Mr. Blinken met with Lebanon’s prime minister in Amman and was holding talks with the foreign ministers of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as Palestinian representatives, Jordan’s foreign ministry said. Those countries have been among the most forceful in their condemnation of Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas and is home to 2.3 million Palestinians.
Since the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel has expanded a blockade that has left the Gaza Strip largely cut off from supplies of food, water and fuel and called on Gazans to evacuate amid an Israeli ground invasion focused on the north. Limited amounts of aid have been allowed in through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, and aid agencies say that shortages of basic necessities are pushing people into desperation.
David M. Satterfield, who was accompanying Mr. Blinken as the U.S. special envoy for humanitarian assistance in the war, said on Saturday that the need for aid was expected to grow if more Gazans moved south in the enclave to escape advancing Israeli troops.
About 350,000 or 400,000 people are still in the north, Mr. Satterfield told reporters, adding, “If those individuals or a portion of them come to the south, that’s going to increase the load, increase the demand even more.”
Humanitarian agencies in Gaza say they desperately need fuel imports to deliver aid and to keep electricity running. Mr. Satterfield noted that Israel had allowed UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinians, to distribute fuel that was stored in Gaza for desalination plants and hospitals in the south. When that fuel is expended, he said, “we have every expectation that, in an appropriate manner, fuel will be brought in.”
Israel has said that it will not permit any fuel to enter Gaza at this point because of concerns that it would be used by Hamas. It says that Hamas has ample reservoirs of fuel at its disposal, and that the armed group would divert any additional truckloads for military purposes.
Israeli military officials said this past week that any agreement by Israel’s political leaders to allow fuel into Gaza would have to ensure that it reached only hospitals. Col. Elad Goren, a senior officer in Israel’s Defense Ministry, said in an interview that the ministry had begun discussing how that could work in coordination with the United Nations.
Mr. Satterfield said that the United States was not aware of any Hamas interference in the delivery of humanitarian aid.
The unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where the health ministry says that more than 9,200 people have been killed, has provoked outrage in the region, in the United States and around the world, leading the Biden administration to be more vocal in its commitment to protecting Palestinian civilians.
Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.