Tuesday is the day when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet with prominent members of the Israeli opposition in an effort to forward a ceasefire plan for the Gaza War.
His visit is a component of the US effort to force an end to the eight-month conflict between Israel and the militant Palestinian organization Hamas.
The US-drafted resolution endorsing a six-week truce plan in which Israel would evacuate Gaza’s population centers and Hamas would release captives abducted during the war’s outbreak on October 7 was approved by the UN Security Council on Monday.
Blinken is scheduled to meet with opposition leader Yair Lapid and centrist former army chief Benny Gantz in Tel Aviv on Tuesday. Gantz resigned from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration on Sunday.
The United States, a steadfast supporter of Israel, has come under fire for obstructing multiple prior UN draft resolutions that called for a ceasefire.
The Security Council, according to US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, “voted for peace.”
“This Council sent a clear message to Hamas: accept the ceasefire deal on the table. Israel has already agreed to this deal and the fighting could stop today if Hamas would do the same,” she said after the UN session.
On Monday, Hamas declared that it “welcomes” the vote and reiterated that it is ready to work with mediators.
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of Palestine, called the UN vote a “step in the right direction.”
The US has stated its hopes that Abbas’s Palestinian Authority—which is headquartered in the West Bank and does not control Gaza—will eventually take on some managerial role over the region.
