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U. S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met in Amman with King Abdullah II and Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister.
By Edward Wong
reports from Doha, Qatar; Amman, Jordan; and Istanbul, Turkey
Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, held meetings on Sunday with leaders in Jordan and Qatar as part of a weeklong eastern Mediterranean and Middle East tour aimed at reducing the risk that the war in Gaza could spread in the region.
Blinken met separately in Amman with King Abdullah II and Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister. He thanked the king for Jordan’s role in sending humanitarian aid to Gaza and the two men agreed to continue coordinating their aid, according to a State Department spokesman. Matthew Miller.
The U. S. has been pressuring Israel for months to allow more aid to Gaza. He blinked at that message as he toured a warehouse containing cans of food to be transported to Gaza in trucks organized through the United Nations World Food Program.
Sheri Ritsema-Anderson, the U. N. resident coordinator in Jordan, told reporters that in her 15 years in the Middle East, she had never noticed a humanitarian situation as dire as Gaza, describing it as an “epic catastrophe. “
He said about 220 truckloads of aid and fuel now arrive in Gaza daily, but this is only a fraction of the amount needed.
Before the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that prompted Israel to launch airstrikes and a ground invasion in Gaza, which has forced most of the territory’s 2.2 million Palestinians from their homes, about 600 to 800 trucks carried supplies into Gaza each day. The territory has been under a de facto blockade by Israel, with the assistance of Egypt, for more than 16 years.
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