Antony Blinken News

Gaza, giving Arab leaders more time to try to persuade the US to let it pass. Top diplomats from countries including Egypt, Qatar and Jordan were set to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington later Friday amid a push for the US to abstain from voting. Given the US's status as a veto-wielding permanent member of the council, a no vote would kill the resolution.

Israel, the State Department said Tuesday it will impose travel bans on extremist Jewish settlers implicated in a rash of recent attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the step after warning Israel last week that President Joe Biden's administration would be taking action over the attacks. Blinken did not announce individual visa bans, but department spokesman Matthew Miller said the bans would be implemented starting Tuesday and would cover «dozens» of settlers and their families, with more to come if the settler violence continued. He wouldn't give a number and refused to identify any of those targeted due to confidentiality reasons. The decision comes at a sensitive moment in U.S.-Israeli relations.

WASHINGTON : The US State Department will impose visa bans against individuals involved in undermining peace, security or stability in the occupied West Bank, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on Tuesday announcing a new visa restriction policy. The restrictions will target those who have committed acts of violence or taken other actions that restrict civilians' access to essential services and basic necessities and may also apply to those individuals' family members, Blinken said. President Joe Biden and other senior U.S.

Israel-Hamas war: Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are continuing the large-scale airstrikes against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip as the world leaders deliberate to bring both parties back to the negotiating table. Since Friday morning, when the true deal collapsed, at least 240 Palestinians have been reported to be killed in the Gaza Strip with the overall death toll crossing 15,000. Israel has shifted the focus of bombardments to southern Gaza and ruled out any talks with Hamas about the ceasefire.

Israel pounded targets in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, intensifying a renewed offensive that followed a weeklong truce with Hamas and giving rise to renewed concerns about civilian casualties.At least 200 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting resumed Friday morning, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, even as the United States urged ally Israel to do everything possible to protect civilians. “This is going to be very important going forward,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday after meetings with Arab foreign ministers in Dubai, wrapping up his third Middle East tour since the war started. “It’s something we’re going to be looking at very closely.”Many of Israel’s attacks Saturday were focused on the Khan Younis area in southern Gaza, where the military said it had struck more than 50 Hamas targets with airstrikes, tank fire and its navy.

Gaza on Friday, the Israeli military said, around an hour before a truce with Hamas was due to expire. «Following the initial report regarding sirens sounded in communities near the Gaza Strip, the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) Aerial Defense Array successfully intercepted a launch from the Gaza Strip,» the military said on its official Telegram account. The rocket was the first launched from Gaza since a missile fired shortly into the first day of a truce that has lasted seven days, the military confirmed. There has been no official confirmation of any potential extension of the truce into an eighth day, though Hamas said it was open to the possibility and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has urged that the pause continue. Eyewitnesses reported heavy aircraft and drone activity in northwestern Gaza on Thursday morning, an AFP reporter said.

Sikh separatist leader in the United States is good and appropriate, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday. «The government announced today that it was conducting an investigation, and that's good and appropriate, and we look forward to seeing the results,» Blinken told reporters travelling with him in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) informed that it has decided to set up a high-level probe committee to look into the security concerns shared by the US regarding the criminal nexus and the attempt to murder Pannun. While speaking to reporters who were travelling with him in Tel Aviv, Israel, Blinken said, "The government announced today that it was conducting an investigation, and that’s good and appropriate, and we look forward to seeing the results." The Secretary of State was responding to a question on the appearance of an unnamed Indian official in an indictment filed by federal US prosecutors in a Manhattan court on Wednesday along with an Indian national, which the Department of Justice alleges hired someone in the US to assassinate Pannun, a vocal critic of India and espousing the cause of separate Khalistan.

Red Cross in Gaza City, Israel said on Thursday, and more hostages were expected to be released, following a last-minute deal struck by Israel and Hamas. Israel named the women as 21-year-old Mia Schem, who was seized at a dance party along with many of the other hostages abducted into Gaza, and 40-year-old Amit Sosana. Schem also holds French nationality. The warring sides agreed to extend their ceasefire for a seventh day, while mediators pressed on with talks to extend the truce further to free more hostages and let aid reach Gaza. The truce has halted bombing and allowed some humanitarian aid into Gaza. Also on Thursday, the armed wing of Hamas claimed responsibility for a deadly shooting in Jerusalem which killed three people.

Israel and Hamas will continue, both sides said Thursday, moments before the deal was due to expire, though details of any official agreement remained unclear. Minutes before the halt in fighting was due to expire at 0500GMT, Israel's military said the "operational pause" would be extended, without specifying for how long.

Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the Red Cross and other authorities said. In a repeat of scenes over the past six days during a humanitarian pause in hostilities, the civilians were released to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and driven in vehicles to Israel. Two Russian citizens and four Thai citizens were released outside the framework of the agreement while the 10 Israeli citizens freed included five dual citizens, Ansari said. They were a Dutch dual citizen, who is also a minor, three German dual citizens and one U.S.

State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that there was «no sense of fatigue» among NATO allies when it came to helping Ukraine. «We must and we will continue to support Ukraine,» he said after a NATO-Ukraine meeting in Brussels, adding that NATO allies were unanimous on this position and that he was also hearing continued support for Ukraine in both chambers of the U.S. Congress. Kyiv has been concerned that the Israel-Hamas war could divert international attention away from its efforts to defeat Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged the West earlier on Wednesday to ramp up arms production. The European Union has delivered about 300,000 of its promised 1 million artillery shells to Ukraine so far, he said. «We need to create a Euro-Atlantic common area of defence industries,» Kuleba said before meeting the NATO foreign ministers, adding this would ensure both Ukraine's security and that of NATO countries themselves. Kyiv has recently engaged in a concerted drive to entice leading global arms manufacturers to set up operations in Ukraine, part of a bid to diversify its reliance on weapons and ammunition given by its allies. «It is important that our solidarity with Ukraine is not only demonstrated in words but also in deeds,» NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, urging allies to do more.

India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue this month, the American side pushed for the co-production of the Stryker armoured combat vehicle. In the past as well, the US has made the push for the sale of Stryker systems to India. Meanwhile, sources in the security establishment told ANI that India is considering the proposal made by the American establishment for the Stryker vehicles.

Israel released more hostages and prisoners under terms of a fragile cease-fire that held for a fifth day Tuesday as international mediators in Qatar worked to extend the truce and the United States urged Israel to better protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza if it follows through on its promise to resume the war. In the latest swap since the cease-fire began Friday, Israel said 10 of its citizens and two Thai nationals were freed by Hamas and had been returned to Israel.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Israel, the West Bank, Belgium, North Macedonia and UAE this week. It is Blinken's third visit to Israel since Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel on October 7.

Antony Blinken will return this week to the Middle East as the U.S. hopes to find a way to extend a cease-fire in Gaza and get more hostages released, the State Department said Monday. It will be his third trip to the region since Israel's war with Hamas began last month. Blinken will travel to Israel and the West Bank after attending Ukraine-focused meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday in Brussels and Skopje, North Macedonia, where foreign ministers from NATO and the Organization for Peace and Security in Europe are gathering.

That work, begun in the days after the hostages were taken, finally bore fruit with the announcement of a prisoner swap deal mediated by Qatar and Egypt and agreed by Israel, Hamas and the United States. The secretive effort included tense personal diplomatic engagement by U.S. President Joe Biden, who held a number of urgent conversations with emir of Qatar and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the weeks leading up to the deal. It also involved hours of painstaking negotiations including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, CIA Director Bill Burns, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his deputy Jon Finer, and U.S.

By Dr Mukesh Aghi

The United States and the Philippines have signed a nuclear cooperation pact under which U.S. investment and technologies are to help the Southeast Asian nation transition to cleaner energy and bolster its power supply

Antony Blinken has said the US will continue to say things that China doesn't like, as he defended President Joe Biden's remarks wherein he called his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping a "dictator". Biden called Xi a «dictator», just hours after they met for the first time in more than a year and held candid and productive discussions to revive bilateral ties on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco on Wednesday. When pressed on whether Biden's comments were the position of the US government, Blinken responded that the president «speaks for all of us», CBS News reported.

China’s President Xi Jinping a “dictator". The video of Joe Biden calling Xi Jinping a “dictator" surfaced a day after Joe Biden met his Chinese counterpart Xi on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). Anthony Blinken, 61, visibly grimaced and was seen fiddling with his hands when Joe Biden said Xi “is a dictator in the sense that he is the guy who runs the country that is a communist country … based on a form of government different than ours" at a press conference.