New York Times: That's why Arab officials have appealed to Blinken to curb the attack on Gaza

Arab leaders on Saturday publicly and privately appealed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to curb what it called Israel's "military campaign" in the besieged Gaza Strip.

That stance increases pressure on President Joe Biden's administration as it struggles to persuade Israel to minimize civilian casualties and allow more humanitarian aid in.

The newspaper quoted U.S. officials as saying that Arab officials had sent similar messages to Blinken, this time in private, reflecting fears of growing public anger.

Superpower

They told Blinken that they could no longer withstand the internal pressure over the "rising Palestinian death toll" and needed the Americans to act.

U.S. officials told the New York Times that those letters, sent by Arab officials on Saturday, contradicted what some privately told their U.S. counterparts earlier in the conflict that they were "open to an aggressive Israeli campaign against Hamas."

But U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Arab officials' calls for an immediate ceasefire by repeating the U.S. position that Israel has the right to defend itself but needs to minimize civilian casualties.

"Our view is that the ceasefire now will leave Hamas in place and able to regroup and repeat what it did on the seventh of October," he said. "No country — none of us — can accept that."

An American Predicament

According to the New York Times, the US secretary of state's trip highlighted the predicament the United States finds itself in, sandwiched between international outrage over the "rising death toll among Palestinian civilians" and its efforts to strongly support Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who appeared at the press conference in Amman alongside Blinken, are the two countries most concerned about internal instability due to Israel's assault on Gaza.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza counted 9770,70 martyrs since the beginning of the Israeli aggression, and confirmed that 24% of the victims of the aggression are women and children, noting that the occupation committed during the past 243 hours major massacres that killed <> martyrs. The numbers are rising every day because the occupation continues to commit daily massacres against civilians in the besieged enclave.