By Mark Jones
LONDON (Reuters) - The United States and other major powers must use their influence with Israel to end the ongoing “massacre” in Gaza, Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh said on Friday.
Jordan strongly criticized the Israeli bombing of Gaza, and Al-Khasawneh said on Friday that the bombing "meets all the specifications of war crimes against humanity."
Israel denied being accused of war crimes.
Al-Khasawneh said that there is a need for international diplomacy with great weight and influence to ensure a ceasefire.
The Jordanian Prime Minister said during an event at the London School of Economics, "Leadership is required from our American friends and American partners, and from the various capitals of the world that can truly influence the decision-making process in Israel to end this massacre."
He added that public opinion in the West was clear in its concerns about the violence and pressures on the rules-based international order on issues such as providing aid to the devastated parts of Gaza.
"The major powers have not only a moral responsibility, but also an obligation, in the context of maintaining the rules-based international order, to come and tell the current Israeli government that this must stop," he said.
Al-Khasawneh, who was met with loud protests upon his arrival at the event from LSE students and Arabs living abroad, said the hope is that things can then “move to a situation that fundamentally resolves this vicious cycle of violence and killing.”
Israel and the United States, its biggest backer, appear to be at loggerheads now, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition government largely reject the establishment of a Palestinian state even though Washington asserts that a two-state solution is the only possible path to lasting peace for the region.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on his fourth trip to the Middle East last week since the October 7 Hamas attack, reached a rough agreement with Israel that its Muslim-majority neighbors would help rehabilitate Gaza after the war and continue economic integration with Israel, but Only if it commits to eventually allowing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
US-brokered talks on establishing a Palestinian state in the territories now occupied by Israel have collapsed for nearly a decade.
