LONDON (dpa-AFX) – British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is expected to make a short visit to Israel this Thursday. He wants to meet, among others, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Izchak Herzog, as the British news agency PA reported, among others. He then plans to visit other capitals in the region as part of his two-day trip. The aim was to prevent the fighting from spreading through diplomatic channels, it was said. In addition, Sunak wants to push for humanitarian aid to be delivered to the Gaza Strip as quickly as possible.
On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden visited Israel and assured the country of US solidarity and full support in view of the escalation of violence in the Middle East. His trip was overshadowed by a devastating rocket strike at a clinic in the Gaza Strip the evening before. Chancellor Olaf Scholz made a solidarity visit to Israel on Tuesday. On Wednesday he met Egypt’s head of state Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo. In addition to the security situation after the attack on Israel by the Islamist Hamas, efforts to release the hostages kidnapped by Hamas in Israel were also an issue./hme/DP/zb