CAIRO: US Vice President Mike Pence told Egypt’s leader the US would support a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians if the two sides agreed to it, seeking to reassure a key Arab ally over President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
It is the highest-level visit by a US official to the region since December, when Trump upended decades of US policy on Jerusalem in a move opposed by Arab leaders including Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
“We heard President El-Sisi out,” Pence told reporters after their meeting, saying the Egyptian leader described his objection to Trump’s decision as a “disagreement between friends.”
Pence said he assured El-Sisi that the US was committed to preserving the status quo of holy sites in Jerusalem and had come to no final resolution on boundaries for the two parties. “My perception was that he was encouraged by that message,” Pence said.
The Egyptian presidency said in a statement that El-Sisi noted that only negotiations based on a two-state solution could bring an end to the conflict, “and Egypt would spare no effort to support this.”
Pence said he also pressed El-Sisi about two Americans who have been imprisoned in Egypt since 2013, as well as for reform of Egypt’s restrictive laws on non-governmental organizations.
In his meeting with Egypt’s president, Pence pledged firm US backing in the nation’s fight against militants and said ties between the two countries had never been stronger after a period of “drifting apart.”
“We stand shoulder to shoulder with you in Egypt in the fight against terrorism,” Pence told El-Sisi.
Egypt has faced security problems, including attacks by Daesh militants in the North Sinai region. Trump has made the fight against Daesh a top priority.
Though Pence intends to discuss counterterrorism throughout the trip, the Jerusalem decision remains a hot topic. Trump’s announcement, which also set in motion the process of moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, prompted Palestinians to reject the US as a peace broker.
Pence will end his trip in Israel, where he will be warmly welcomed following Trump’s designation. He plans to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, address the Israeli legislature and visit the Western Wall.
Pence is not scheduled to meet Palestinian leaders. They were incensed by Trump’s decision on Jerusalem, which upended the longstanding US position that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must determine the city’s status.
“The United States of America is deeply committed to restarting the peace process in the Middle East,” Pence told reporters.
The Trump administration’s announcement on Thursday that it was withholding about half the aid it was set to give a UN relief agency that serves the Palestinians raised questions about fledgling US efforts to revive peace talks and further undermined Arabs’ hope that the US can act as an impartial arbitrator. Pence also plans to visit US troops while he is in the region.
US will back two-state solution for Palestinians, Israelis, says Pence
US will back two-state solution for Palestinians, Israelis, says Pence
Israel says it has launched ‘broad wave’ of strikes on Iran, as Tehran widens its response across the region
- US military says 17 Iranian navy ships destroyed, struck nearly 2,000 targets in Iran thus far
- US and Israeli attacks have killed 787 people in Iran: Iranian Red Crescent
JERUSALEM/DUBAI/TEHRAN: Israel early Wednesday launched new attacks on Iran as the US military said it has hit nearly 2,000 targets inside the Islamic republic, which tried to impose a cost by expanding a missile and drone barrage across the region.
With global energy prices on the rise, President Donald Trump said the US Navy was ready to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, the vital chokepoint into the Gulf that Iran has threatened to seal off.
Israel’s military said it launched a “broad wave of strikes” after midnight across Iran, which in the hours before had launched three separate missile barrages at Israel, causing mild injuries to a woman in Tel Aviv.
The US military has destroyed 17 Iranian ships, including a submarine, and struck nearly 2,000 targets in Iran, the commander of the US Central Command said on Tuesday.
“Today, there is not a single Iranian ship underway in the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, or Gulf of Oman,” US Central Command’s Brad Cooper said in a video posted to X.
Cooper said the US military has “severely degraded Iran’s air defenses” and taken out hundreds of ballistic missiles, launchers and drones.
The video showed missiles and jets launching from US ships, and targets exploding on the ground.
Cooper noted that Iran has launched over 500 ballistic missiles and more than 2,000 drones in retaliation.
But he said the US is “hunting” Iran’s last remaining mobile ballistic missile launchers to eliminate their “lingering launch capability.”
Cooper said the operation has involved more than 50,000 troops, 200 fighter jets, two aircraft carriers and bombers, and “more capability is on the way.”
“We’ve just begun,” Cooper said, adding that the US military is targeting “all the things that can shoot at us.”
“These forces bring a massive amount of firepower, representing the largest buildup by the US in the Middle East in a generation,” he said in the video message, describing the first day’s barrage as bigger than the so-called “shock and awe” against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003.
Iran‘s response
The US and Israeli attacks have killed 787 people in Iran, according to the Iranian Red Crescent, a toll that could not be independently confirmed.
Iran vowed to inflict a heavy price in retaliation. Drones struck adjacent the US consulate in Dubai, starting a fire but inflicting no casualties, and against the US military base at Al-Udeid in Qatar.
The attacks came a day after strikes on the US embassies in Riyadh and Kuwait City and on a US air base in Bahrain.
“We are saying to the enemy that if it decides to hit our main centers, we will hit all economic centers in the region,” Islamic Revolutionary Guard General Ebrahim Jabbari said.
Iranian attacks have killed at least nine people and wounded dozens in the Gulf region, according to various reports quoting local authorities.
Among the latest death was an 11-year-old girl who was killed after shrapnel fell in a residential area in Kuwait City, health authorities said Wednesday.
The Kuwait army said in a statement the shrapnel fell over a house and left casualties while forces were intercepting “several hostile aerial targets” over the country.
The Health Ministry said in a separate statement that the child died of her wounds at the hospital.
The child’s mother and three other relatives were injured and being treated at the hospital, it said.
Vessel hit in Gulf of Oman
A vessel was hit by a projectile early Wednesday in the Gulf of Oman off the United Arab Emirates, an agency of the UK military said.
There were no reported casualties.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center said the vessel was struck 8 miles east of Fujairah, one of the UAE’s seven emirates.
The attack damaged the vessel’s steel plating.
No fire or water intake was reported, it said.
Iran hits US embassies
The US State Department said Tuesday it’s preparing military and charter flights for Americans who want to leave the Middle East. Several other countries also arranged evacuation flights for their citizens.
An attack from two drones on the US Embassy in Riyadh caused a “limited fire,” according to the Saudi Arabian Defense Ministry, and the embassy urged Americans to avoid the compound.
An Iranian drone struck a parking lot outside the US consulate in Dubai, sparking a small fire, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in Washington. He said all personnel were accounted for.
The United Arab Emirates said it has intercepted the vast majority of more than 1,000 Iranian missile and drone attacks against it.
US embassies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Lebanon said they were closed to the public.
The US State Department ordered the evacuation of non-emergency personnel and family in Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. And US citizens were urged to leave more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries, though many were stranded because of airspace closures.
The US military has confirmed six deaths of American service members.
Four of the American soldiers killed were identified as Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida; Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska; Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota; and Sgt, Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, lowa, who received a posthumous promotion in rank. They were assigned to the Iowa-based 103rd Sustainment Command.
Ghost town
In Tehran, residents who have not fled remained shut away in their homes for fear of the US-Israeli bombardment.
The Iranian capital is normally home to around 10 million people, but in recent days “there are so few people that you’d think no one ever lived here,” said Samireh, a 33-year-old nurse.
Authorities had previously urged people to leave the city, and police officers, armed security forces and armored vehicles have been stationed at main junctions, carrying out random checks on vehicles.
In the more upmarket north of Tehran, the meowing of cats and chirping of birds replaced the usual din of traffic jams.
Iranian authorities said a strike on a school in the city of Minab on the first day of the war killed more than 150 people.
Drone downed near Baghdad airport
In Baghdad, a drone was shot down on Wednesday near Baghdad’s international airport, a day after a similar attack on the facility, two security sources told AFP.
“A drone was downed near Baghdad airport, with no casualties or material damage reported,” an Iraqi security source said. Another security source in Baghdad confirmed the incident.
The airport includes a military base that hosts a US diplomatic facility and previously housed US-led coalition troops.
