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ConflictsMiddle East

Jordan's king urges Blinken to push for cease-fire in Gaza

Alex Forrest Whiting
January 7, 2024

Jordan's King Abdullah has asked US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to put pressure on Israel to agree to an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. The Jordanian king warned Blinken of "catastrophic repercussions" of war in Gaza.

https://p.dw.com/p/4awpW

[Video transcript]

The US's top diplomat on a mad scramble to prevent the spread of the Israel-Hamas war.

This time, Antony Blinken is in Jordan's capital Amman as his Middle East mission becomes ever more urgent:

Jordan's King Abdullah II., urging the US Secretary of State to do all he can to push Israel for a cease-fire.

And warning Blinken of what he calls the catastrophic repercussions of war in Gaza. 

Blinken's visit to a World Food Programme facility, highlighting the worsening humanitarian situation in the Gaza strip. 

(Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State) 
"We are intensely focused on the very difficult and deteriorating food situation for men, women and children in Gaza."

For these displaced Palestinians on the receiving end of this conflict in Gaza, help can't come soon enough.

Some are counting on Antony Blinken himself to end the war.

(Um Mohamad al-Arqan, displaced Palestinian) 
"We hope that Antony Blinken and God, that Blinken looks at us with an eye of mercy, ends the war, ends the misery we're living in. We are a people that must live a free and dignified life."

But as rescuers search through rubble after another Israeli airstrike in the south of the Gaza strip, the prospect of peace seems hopeless  

Blinken's Middle East tour though continues — as he prepares to meet other leaders on his mission to try to control the fallout from this conflict.