PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – President Obama is sending Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Middle East to try to defuse the conflict in Gaza, the White House announced on Tuesday.
Mrs. Clinton, who has been accompanying Mr. Obama on his three-country Asia trip, will leave directly from Asia, traveling first to Jerusalem to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, then to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian leaders and finally to Cairo to meet with Egyptian officials.
“This morning, Secretary Clinton and the president spoke again about the situation in Gaza and the they agreed that it makes sense for the secretary to travel to the region so Secretary Clinton will depart today,” said Benjamin Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama. “Her visits will build on the engagement that we’ve undertaken in the last several days.”
Mr. Rhodes said that “any resolution to this has to include an end to that rocket fire” by Hamas militants on Israeli communities but “the best way to solve this is through diplomacy.”
He added: “It’s in nobody’s interest to see an escalation of the military conflict.”
The decision to dispatch Mrs. Clinton dramatically deepens the American involvement in the crisis. Mr. Obama made a number of late-night phone calls to the Middle East on Monday night that convinced him that he had to become more engaged and that Mrs. Clinton might be able to accomplish something.
After an Asian summit dinner in Phnom Penh on Monday night, Mr. Obama called President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt to discuss the situation, then spoke with Mr. Netanyahu and called Mr. Morsi back. He was up until 2:30 a.m. on the phone, the White House said. He has been consulting with Mrs. Clinton repeatedly on the sidelines of the Asian summit meetings on Tuesday.
Mrs. Clinton will not meet with Hamas representatives on her trip, but instead with leaders of the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, which is at odds with Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. “We do not engage directly with Hamas,” Mr. Rhodes said.
Instead, Mr. Obama is focused on leveraging Egypt’s influence with Hamas to press for a halt to the rocket attacks. “We believe Egypt can and should be a partner in achieving that outcome,” Mr. Rhodes said.
Mr. Rhodes reaffirmed that the United States supports Israel’s right to defend itself and said Mr. Obama did not ask Mr. Netanyahu to hold off a ground incursion into Gaza. Thousands of Israeli forces have gathered in possible preparation to move into Gaza, which would significantly escalate the conflict.
With the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon scheduled to arrive in Israel on Tuesday followed by Mrs. Clinton, Israel has decided to give some more time to diplomacy to end the crisis with Gaza before launching a ground invasion into the Palestinian enclave, a senior Israeli official said.
The official in the Israeli prime minister’s office said that the country’s top nine ministers, who make up the inner security cabinet, held discussions late into the night on the state of the diplomatic efforts and Israel’s military operation in Gaza, which entered its seventh day on Tuesday. The goal of the operation, Israel says, is to bring about an end to years of rocket fire by Gaza militants against southern Israel.
“A decision has been taken to give diplomacy more time, but not unlimited time,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the deliberations of the inner cabinet are highly confidential.
Egypt has been brokering efforts, with American involvement, for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza.
“What is on the table is not there yet. It does not bring about what we need,” the official said, referring to Israel’s demands for an end to the threat of rocket fire in the south.
Tens of thousands of Israeli reserve soldiers have been mobilized and troops and tanks have massed along the border with Gaza, ready to go in the order is given.
So far Israel has carried out its campaign from the air, pounding more than 1,000 targets in Gaza, including long-range rocket launchers and stores. Palestinian health officials have put the death toll at about 107, including 26 children. Gaza militants have fired more than 800 rockets at Israel, killing three civilians there in one attack. Several have reached as far north as Tel Aviv.
Many of the rockets headed for densely populated areas have been intercepted by Israel’s anti-rocket missile system while others have landed in open ground.
On Tuesday morning, Gaza militants fired more barrages of rockets into southern Israel. One struck a bus in the southern city of Beersheba but the passengers had disembarked and escaped unharmed, according to initial reports.
Mrs. Clinton’s trip comes even as she is preparing to step down as secretary of state, presenting her a delicate late test after four years in which Mr. Obama’s administration has failed to achieve the broader peace it once sought in the region.
With the president’s re-election behind him, Mrs. Clinton plans to resign around the time of the second inauguration on Jan. 20. Aides said she would stay until a successor can be confirmed as long as it does not drag too long into the new year.
The abrupt change in plans here underscored the challenges for Mr. Obama as he tries to reorient American foreign policy away from its dominant focus on the Middle East and more toward the Pacific-Asia region that he sees as the long-term future. Even as he chose Southeast Asia as the destination for the first overseas trip after winning a second term, Mr. Obama has found himself drawn every day into the deadly dispute consuming the Middle East.
Clinton to Visit Israel in Effort to Defuse Gaza Conflict
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Clinton to Visit Israel in Effort to Defuse Gaza Conflict
