US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “will come straight from his visit to China and on his way to Israel”, World Economic Forum (PEF) President Borge Brende said at a press conference in Riyadh on Saturday.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and foreign ministers and prime ministers of various Middle Eastern and European countries are also on the list of participants for the two-day special PEF meeting.
Among them are the heads of diplomacy of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the EU, as well as the prime ministers of Qatar, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, according to a PEF press release.
Among more than 1 thousand the participants will be a total of 12 heads of state and government, B. Brende announced on Saturday.
“Now there is a new impetus in the negotiations regarding the hostages, as well as about… a possible way out of the impasse in which we found ourselves in the Gaza Strip,” said B. Brende, but did not elaborate on this issue.
The meeting, which he said “has every chance of being very important, will certainly discuss the ongoing humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip” and “will discuss regional aspects as well as [susiję] with Iran”.
The war in the Gaza Strip began when the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to Israel.
In the attack, Hamas militants took about 250 hostages, 129 of whom Israel says are still in the Gaza Strip, including 34 dead.
After vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a massive military offensive that killed at least 34,388 people, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
