US vows aid for Gaza, to reopen Jerusalem consulate

(MENAFN - Gulf Times) Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed yesterday to rebuild US relations with Palestinians by reopening a consulate in Jerusalem, as well as giving millions in aid to help the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. The announcements signalled a clean break with US policy under former president Donald Trump, who had shuttered the diplomatic mission for Palestinians in 2019 and slashed aid to the Palestinian Authority. Long term, Blinken evoked the ''possibility of resuming the effort to achieve a two-state solution, which we continue to believe is the only way to truly assure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state, and of course to give the Palestinians the state they’re entitled to”. Blinken’s visit, part of a wider Middle East tour, comes after Friday’s truce between Israel and Gaza. ''The United States will be moving forward with the process of reopening our consulate in Jerusalem,” Blinken said after meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, later adding there was no timeline yet for that. The top diplomat of US President Joe Biden also stressed Washington’s commitment to rebuilding relations with the Palestinians with a 'shared conviction that Palestinians and Israelis alike deserve equal measures of security, freedom opportunity and dignity”. Blinken said he would notify Congress of the intention to provide $75mn in aid to the Palestinians, on top of $5.5mn in immediate disaster assistance for Gaza, and about $32mn for an emergency humanitarian appeal by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. ''Reconstruction and then relief for the people of Gaza, far from empowering Hamas, I think has the potential to undermine it,” he said. Abbas said earlier in the day his administration was ready to ''work directly to help with the reconstruction of Gaza”. ''There’s lots of hard work ahead to restore hope, respect and some trust across the communities,” Blinken said. Israel yesterday began allowing humanitarian aid to pass into the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing, saying it would permit daily convoys. Patients were to be able to travel in and out of Gaza for treatment, and fishing off the enclave’s coast resume. But tensions simmer in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Hours before Biden’s arrival, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man during an arrest raid on the Amara refugee camp near Ramallah in the West Bank, Palestinian and Israeli security sources said. In Jerusalem, an attacker on Monday stabbed two young Israeli men including a soldier before police shot him dead.MENAFN25052021000067011011ID1102136302