Here's a look at what came out of Blinken's 11th trip to the Middle East

LONDON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken's weeklong trip to the Middle East ended unexpectedly in London on Friday, but the lack of a cease-fire breakthrough for Gaza came as no surprise to U.S. and Arab officials, who described the growing regional conflicts as a “nightmare.”

The trip to Israel, Qatar and Saudi Arabia had been expected after President Joe Biden said this month that he would dispatch Blinken to the region following Israel’s killing of Hamas military chief Yahya Sinwar, a move that Blinken said helped open a window for new talks on a cease-fire proposal that has been languishing for months.

Blinken and other U.S. officials discussed various proposals that could potentially trigger the release of Israeli hostages and end the devastating war in Gaza. The main discussion this week was more focused on a post-war plan for Palestinian governance, reconstruction and security for the larger region.

The impact of the war was on full display on Blinken's last day in Tel Aviv, when shortly before departing for the airport Wednesday, air raid sirens blared at the hotel where U.S. officials and press had been staying. The Israeli military said two rockets fired into Israel from Lebanon were intercepted, with smoke visible from the hotel.

Here are some takeaways from Blinken's 11th visit to the Middle East since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began over a year ago:

While expectations were low for an agreement between Israel and Hamas militants, America and Israel did announce that after several weeks with no meetings, U.S. and Israeli negotiators will be arriving in Qatar in the coming days to revive talks.

Qatar has served as a key mediator between Israel and Hamas. Blinken, speaking to reporters Thursday in the Qatari capital, Doha, said negotiators would soon return to the Gulf city.

“What we really have to determine is whether Hamas is prepared to engage,” Blinken said. But Hamas’ political representatives have not so far signaled a softer stance.

“There is no change in our position,” senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told Al Mayadeen, a Lebanese broadcaster.

Hamdan said their delegates heard from mediators in Cairo about the potential to revive cease-fire negotiations, but he reiterated that the group still insists on an end to Israel’s offensive in Gaza, as well as its complete withdrawal from the territory.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the head of the Mossad, the country’s spy agency, would travel to Qatar on Sunday to meet with CIA director Bill Burns and the Qatari prime minister.

Throughout the trip, the U.S. questioned aspects of Israel's handling of the war, raising concerns about a controversial plan in northern Gaza as well as pushing its ally to adhere to U.S. humanitarian law regarding the insufficient level of aid reaching Palestinians.

Before leaving Tel Aviv, Blinken and other U.S. officials cornered Netanyahu and members of his government regarding a proposal backed by some Israeli officials in which civilians would be ordered to leave the north and anyone remaining would be starved out or killed.

A senior State Department official said Tuesday that both Netanyahu and his aide Ron Dermer denied having a proposal titled the “General’s Plan” and that it was damaging for such a perception to even exist.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks, said the U.S. responded by imploring the Israelis to go to great lengths to make it clear publicly that this is not their policy.

In that same meeting, Blinken also broached the issue of aid getting into Gaza, following up on a stern letter issued by him and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently that called for a remedy to the dire situation on the ground for Palestinians.

Blinken, according to the official, laid out a series of areas where the Israelis needed to improve, providing a 30-day deadline to begin seeing progress.

Days later in Doha, Blinken announced an additional $135 million in U.S. aid to the Palestinians but said again that the assistance would be hopeless if it is not able to get to the civilians in need.

Many Arab leaders this week publicly expressed their exasperation at the status of the cease-fire negotiations more than a year into the conflict. Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said he was sad that mediators got so close to a deal several times in recent months only to be derailed.

“Every time we got closer to a solution, unfortunately, there were many steps back,” he told reporters Thursday in Doha.

He added that going forward, there would be consequences “should there be any of the parties that refuse to be constructively part of the negotiations.”

Jordan's foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, took it even further, saying directly to Blinken during a meeting Friday in London that the “Israeli government is not listening to anyone,” and as a result, the conflicts have became a “nightmare that the region is continuing to live through."

“The only path to save the region from that is for Israel to stop the aggressions on Gaza, on Lebanon, stop unilateral illegal measures of the West Bank that is also pushing the situation,” Safadi said.

Many questioned if the timing of the trip was the Biden administration's 11th-hour effort to achieve even the most modest of breakthroughs in the region before the U.S. presidential election.

Blinken, instead, pointed to Sinwar's death as providing a much-needed opening for mediators who had spent the last month trying to get back to the negotiating table.

The discussions around a post-war plan are being pushed by the U.S. as a way to rebuild goodwill among the various stakeholders after several lethal strikes over the summer, including two that took out the leaders of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

This is the last time Blinken will be in the region before Election Day in 11 days, and Democrats had hoped for a cease-fire deal by the time Americans began to vote.

That would have helped alleviate the serious criticism many voters have had toward Vice President Kamala Harris' stance on the war. Critics say the Biden administration has not gone far enough to deter Israel's conduct of the war, which has left more than 42,000 Palestinians dead.

Local health authorities do not differentiate between militants and civilians in their count but say women and children make up more than half the fatalities.

This story has been corrected to reflect in the section, ‘Frustration from Arab partners,’ that quotes erroneously attributed to Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who was misidentified as Qatar’s prime minister, were from Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the prime minister. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is Qatar’s ruling emir.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, meets with Israel's President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (Nathan Howard/Pool via AP)

Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system fires to intercept as air raid sirens sound in Tel Aviv, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (Nathan Howard/Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, meets Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Wednesday Oct. 23, 2024. (Nathan Howard/Pool via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, meets with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in Doha, Qatar, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. (Nathan Howard/Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, and Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani shake hands as they attend a press conference in Doha, Qatar, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. (Nathan Howard/Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, and Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani during their meeting in Doha, Qatar, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. (Nathan Howard/Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi in London Britain, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Nathan Howard/Pool photo via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi in London Britain, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Nathan Howard/Pool photo via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi in London Britain, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Nathan Howard/Pool photo via AP)

COPENHAGEN (AP) — Nearly 30 years after they killed their parents, Erik and Lyle Menendez launched a beautification project in the California prison where they're serving life sentences.

Their project was inspired by the Norwegian approach to incarceration that believes rehabilitation in humane prisons surrounded by nature leads to successful reintegration into society, even for those who have committed terrible crimes.

Norway is a long, narrow country in northern Europe, running 1,100 miles (1,750 kilometers) from north to south. It has set up small prisons across the country, which allows people to serve their sentences close to home, said Kristian Mjåland, a Norwegian associate professor of sociology at the University of Agder in Kristiansand.

The entire country has about 3,000 people in prison, he said, putting Norway’s per-capita incarceration rate at roughly one-tenth that of the United States.

Norway has some of the world’s lowest levels of recidivism. Government statistics give the proportion of people reconvicted within two years of release in 2020 as 16%, with the figure falling each year. Meanwhile, a U.S. Department of Justice survey carried out over a decade found that 66% of people released from state prisons in 24 states were rearrested within three years, and most of those were incarcerated again.

Mjåland said Norway's incarceration system is based on the principles that people should be “treated decently by well-trained and decent staff” and have “opportunities for meaningful activities during the day” — something he called the “principle of normality” — and that they should retain their basic rights.

Mjåland, whose research has focused on punishments and prisons, said that, for instance, prisoners in Norway retain the right to vote and access services such as libraries, health care and education delivered by the same providers working in the wider community.

Norway also operates open prisons, some on islands where there is a lot of farm work and contact with nature. The most famous is on the island of Bastoey, “which is very beautifully located in the Oslo Fjord,” Mjåland said.

Even Anders Behring Breivik — who killed eight people in the 2011 bombing of a government building in Oslo, then gunned down 69 more at a holiday camp for left-leaning youth activists — has a dining room, fitness room and TV room with an Xbox. His cell wall is decorated with a poster of the Eiffel Tower and parakeets share his space.

The idea of creating normal, humane conditions for people in prison is starting to spread in the U.S. as well.

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, for instance, has in recent years been trying to apply certain elements of the Nordic approach, and unveiled a program it calls “Little Scandinavia” in a prison in Chester in 2022.

The Menendez brothers’ case was again in the public spotlight Thursday when the Los Angeles County district attorney recommended that their life-without-parole sentences be thrown out. Prosecutors hope a judge will resentence them so they can be eligible for parole.

If the judge agrees, a parole board must then approve their release. The final decision rests with the California governor.

Their lawyer and the LA district attorney argued that they have served enough time, citing evidence that they suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their entertainment executive father. They also say that the brothers, now in their 50s, are model prisoners who have committed themselves to rehabilitation and redemption.

Both point to the brothers' years of efforts to improve the San Diego prison where they have lived for six years. Before that, the two had been held in separate prisons since 1996.

In 2018, Lyle Menendez launched the beautification program, Green Space, at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility. His brother, Erik Menendez, is the lead painter for a massive mural that depicts San Diego landmarks.

“This project hopes to normalize the environment inside the prison to reflect the living environment outside the prison,” Pedro Calderón Michel, deputy press secretary for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, told the AP in an email Friday.

The Menendez brothers' work is ongoing, with the ultimate goal of transforming the prison yard “from an oppressive concrete and gravel slab into a normalized park-like campus setting surrounded by a majestic landscape mural,” according to the project's website.

The final product will include outdoor classrooms, rehabilitation group meeting spaces and training areas for service dogs.

The prison system recently launched the “California Model” in the hopes of bringing similar projects across the state to build “safer communities through rehabilitation, education and reentry,” Calderón Michel wrote.

The brothers' lawyer, Mark Geragos, said he believes Lyle Menendez learned about the Norwegian model during his university classes. Lyle Menendez is currently enrolled in a master's program where he's studied urban planning and recidivism, and Geragos said his client hopes the beautification will make reintroduction into society easier for people who are paroled.

“When you’re there in a gray space that is not very welcoming, it’s disorienting to some degree,” Geragos told The Associated Press on Friday. “And also you have the issue that the terrain is not something that’s welcoming or helpful in terms of being acclimated and being re-acclimated into a community.”

Dominique Moran, a professor at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. said she found in her research that introducing green spaces in prisons improves the wellbeing of prisoners as well as correctional staff.

“Green spaces in prisons reduce self-harm and violence, and also reduces staff sickness,” said Moran, author of “Carceral Geography: Spaces and Practices of Incarceration.”

Moran has studied prisons around the world, and said in an emailed statement that in the Scandinavian approach, “people go to prison AS punishment, not FOR further punishment."

“The deprivation of liberty is itself the punishment," she said. "There should not be further punishment through the nature of the environment in which people are held.”

Gera reported from Warsaw, Poland, and Dazio from Los Angeles. David Keyton contributed from Berlin.

FILE - Lyle, left, and Erik Menendez sit with defense attorney Leslie Abramson, right, in Beverly Hills Municipal Court during a hearing, Nov. 26, 1990. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)

This undated image provided by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shows a mural inside the prison yard at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, where Lyle and Erik Menendez launched a beautification program in 2018. (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation via AP)

The Menendez brothers built a green space in prison. It’s modeled on this Norwegian idea

The Menendez brothers built a green space in prison. It’s modeled on this Norwegian idea

This combination of two booking photos provided by the California Department of Corrections shows Erik Menendez, left, and Lyle Menendez. (California Dept. of Corrections via AP)