US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Thursday there is a need to ease tensions in the Middle East, a region that has been under threat for months amid Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
Why is this important?
A ceasefire remains impossible in Gaza and Lebanon and the region is bracing for Israel’s response to last week’s Iranian missile attack in retaliation for Israel’s military action in Lebanon. No one in Israel died in Iran’s attack and Washington called it ineffective.
For Gaza, President Joe Biden put forward a three-phase ceasefire plan on May 31, addressing differences over Israel’s demands to maintain a presence in a corridor along Gaza’s border with Egypt and an exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. Due to this there have been obstacles for months. ,
In Lebanon, Washington and Paris proposed a 21-day ceasefire in late September that Israel rejected.
key quote
“We have to get to a ceasefire,” Harris told reporters as she departed Las Vegas, commenting on the situations in Gaza and Lebanon. “We have to de-escalate.”
Washington’s periodic condemnations of Israel over the number of civilians killed in the war have been mostly verbal and have not resulted in any substantive change in policy.
Context
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict began on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli data.
Israel’s subsequent military offensive on Gaza killed approximately 42,000 Palestinians and displaced almost the entire population, according to local health officials, while leading to a hunger crisis and accusations of genocide at the World Court, which Israel denies. Is.
Israel’s recent operations in Lebanon have left hundreds dead, thousands injured and more than a million displaced. Israel says it is targeting Lebanese Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.
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