Sullivan to Travel to Saudi Arabia, Blinken Next

President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan. (Reuters)
President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan. (Reuters)
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Sullivan to Travel to Saudi Arabia, Blinken Next

President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan. (Reuters)
President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan. (Reuters)

US President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, will reportedly travel to Saudi Arabia this weekend and he will be followed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a new sign of the US administration’s determination to cement ties with the Kingdom, according to Bloomberg.

Sullivan will meet with his counterparts from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and India during his visit, added Bloomberg.

An American official expected Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to receive the high-ranking US official during this visit.

Blinken also plans to visit Saudi Arabia in June for a meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, the terrorist group.

The US Department of State and the National Security Council declined to comment on the news.

Sullivan’s meeting will mark the first of its kind between officials of the US, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and India.

Key themes will be diversifying supply chains and investments in strategic infrastructure projects, including ports, rail, and minerals, one of the people said.

Bloomberg reported that the consecutive trips by high-level US officials highlight that the administration is determined to bolster the ties between Washington and Riyadh.

Sullivan spoke to the Saudi Crown Prince on April 11, noting progress to end the war in Yemen and Saudi Arabia’s “extraordinary efforts” there, according to a White House statement.

The US has also been working closely with Saudi Arabia in Sudan.

Biden thanked Riyadh saying the Kingdom was “critical to the success of our operation to extract US government personnel from Khartoum.”



GCC Slams Israel’s Attack on Khan Younis, Calling it a War Crime

Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of Israeli strikes on a makeshift displacement camp in Mawasi Khan Yunis on September 10, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas. (AFP)
Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of Israeli strikes on a makeshift displacement camp in Mawasi Khan Yunis on September 10, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas. (AFP)
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GCC Slams Israel’s Attack on Khan Younis, Calling it a War Crime

Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of Israeli strikes on a makeshift displacement camp in Mawasi Khan Yunis on September 10, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas. (AFP)
Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of Israeli strikes on a makeshift displacement camp in Mawasi Khan Yunis on September 10, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas. (AFP)

Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi strongly condemned on Tuesday the “brutal massacre carried out by the Israeli forces against innocent Palestinian refugees in Khan Younis in Gaza.”

He stressed that these continuous and brutal attacks perpetrated by the Israeli forces against unarmed civilians in Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian territories “can only be described as deliberate war crimes, revealing a blatant and systematic criminal approach that reflects an utter disregard for international and humanitarian laws and treaties.”

He added that these acts are “blatant contempt for all legal, ethical, and humanitarian values,” the GCC said in a statement.

Albudaiwi called on the international community “to take immediate and urgent action to put an end to these heinous crimes, take decisive measures to cease fire immediately, subject the Israeli forces to accountability for their crimes against humanity, and hold the Israeli government responsible for its racist and barbaric policies against the defenseless Palestinians.”

An Israeli strike hit a crowded Palestinian tent camp early Tuesday in Gaza, killing at least 19 people and wounding 60, Palestinian officials said.

The overnight strike occurred in Mawasi, a sprawl of crowded tent camps along the Gaza coast that Israel designated as a humanitarian zone for hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians to seek shelter from the nearly year-old Israel-Hamas war.

The Muslim World League (MWL) also strongly condemned “the horrific massacres perpetrated by the Israeli forces against the Palestinian people.”

It denounced the continued targeting of unarmed displaced Palestinians in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis, located in a designated “safe zone” in the southern Gaza Strip.

In a statement, MWL Secretary General Sheikh Dr. Mohammed Al-Issa expressed his deepest concern over the Israeli government's “blatant violation of all international and humanitarian resolutions, laws, and norms.”

“This ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, unfolding before the eyes of the world, is a direct challenge to the international community's calls for the protection of innocent lives,” he added.

Sheikh Al-Issa emphasized that “there is no justification for this barbarism and humanitarian tragedy other than defiance, arrogance, and revenge against innocent lives. This escalation only serves to complicate the Palestinian issue and hinder the pursuit of peace in the region.”

The MWL called upon the international community “to take urgent action to halt these ongoing massacres, confront the systematic killing, and stop the humanitarian catastrophe facing the Palestinian people.”