Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, has arrived in Egypt as part of a Middle East crisis tour seeking a new truce and “an enduring end” to the Israel-Hamas war, Ednews reports citing The Telegraph
In Cairo, Mr Blinken is scheduled to meet Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Egyptian president, the day after he held talks in Riyadh with Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi Crown Prince.
The trip, Mr Blinken’s fifth to the region since the start of the nearly four-month-long war, will later include stops in Israel and Qatar.
Mr Blinken’s diplomatic push has been given fresh urgency as Israeli forces press further south towards Rafah, a Palestinian city on the southern border with Egypt where more than half the population of the Gaza Strip has taken shelter.