US top diplomat Antony Blinken will make a surprise visit to Bahrain, a State Department official said, the latest leg of a crisis tour of the Middle East, AFP reports.

After meeting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, Blinken will fly to Bahrain, home base of the US Fifth Fleet, for talks with King Hamad on preventing a regional escalation of the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza.